The Texas Chainsaw Loud House: Revisited
by Flagg1991
Summary: Three friends on a cross country road trip fall victim to a backwoods family of cannibals. Remake of The Texas Chainsaw Loud House.
1. The Hitchhiker

**In 2017, I wrote a story called **_**The Texas Chainsaw Loud House **_**that pitted the Louds against horror movie villain Leatherface and his cannibal family. In short, it stank and I deleted it. **_**The Texas Chainsaw Massacre **_**is one of my favorite horror movies and I felt like my story was a slap in the face. I wanted to do a remake but never thought I would, then, a few weeks back, it occured to me to use the sin kids as the bad guys. I mean, they already fit the bill, being inbred and all. So...that's what I did. I used characters based on myself, AberrantScript, and our friend ValeOfDeviant as cannon fodder...err, I mean protagonists. Hope you enjoy.**

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_**The story which you are about to read is an account of the tragedy which befell a trio of twenty-somethings, in particular Abby Script and her boyfriend Flagg1991.**_

_**It is all the more tragic in that they were young. But, had they lived very, very long lives, they could not have expected nor would they have wished to see as much of the mad and macabre as they were to see that day. **_

_**For them an idyllic summer afternoon drive became a nightmare. The events of that day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history: The Texas Chain Saw Loud House.**_

They were following Route 10 through the arid eastern Texas grasslands when they met the hitcher.

It was mid August and unbearably hot, air dry like sandpaper and the dusty blue sky blazing with the harsh light of a Southwestern sun. The land sloped away from the two lane blacktop, thirsty brown and unbroken save for wire fences, farms, and the occasional clapboard structure withering in the heat. Flagg, a tall man with a strong jaw and a fifties style hairdo, drove with his right hand, his bare left arm bent on the doorframe. Despite the wind blowing through the open window, his white T-shirt was soaked with sweat and the crotch of his jeans too. A cigarette jutted from his thin lips, the cherry snuffed; he settled for restively chewing the filter between his teeth because it kept going out. Abby, a thin woman of medium height, lounged limply in the passenger seat, the cross breeze playing in her short blonde hair. Her white tank-top clung to her supple chest, and Flagg stole a sidelong glance, tracing the swell of her breast struggling to keep from getting hard. In the back, Vale, a wispy black man with soft, delicate features and a pencil line mustache that reminded Flagg of Carlton from _The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, _fanned himself with a take out menu he found on the floor.

They were on their way to a video game convention in California and so lost even Jesus couldn't lead them back. Flagg had been navigating by Google Maps, but the cell service crapped out west of Arnette and though they had a road atlas, it did little good; Flagg couldn't read a map to save his life. What is this, 1990 or something? Why learn something you don't have to when you can just have an app do it for you?

"You alive back there, Vale?" Flagg asked into the rearview mirror. The black man's face glistened with sweat and his eyelids drooped like wilting flowers.

Vale sighed. "Barely."

"It's hot," Abby whined. She swiped the back of her hand across her forehead and drew a deep breath.

In addition to the cell service, the A/C was out, leaving the interior of the car as hot the inside of an oven at Auschwitz. A bead of sweat trickled into Flagg's eye and he winced. "It'll be night soon," he assured his companions. Texas nights were sultry, but far cooler than day; the last time Flagg checked his phone, it was 93 degrees. He didn't know if it was simply a hot day or if they were beginning to feel the heat of the desert; either way, he didn't like it.

Flagg changed lanes to pass an old man on a big green tractor and fiddled with the radio, looking for music but finding only static. No cellphones, no House of Hair, Jesus, Texas is a dump. He settled on a station playing a news report, then swung back into the other lane.

"_Graverobbing in Texas is this hour's top news story. An informant led officers of the Muerto County Sheriff's Department to a cemetery just outside the small rural Texas community of Newt early this morning. Officers there discovered what appeared to be a grisly work of art."_

Ahead, a pick-up truck turned onto the blacktop from a dusty farm road, and Flagg slowed.

"_The remains of a badly decomposed body wired to a large monument. A second body was found in a ditch near the perimeter of the cemetery. Subsequent investigation has revealed at least a dozen empty crypts. And it's feared more will turn up as the probe continues. Deputies report that, in some instances, only parts of a corpse had been removed. The head, or in some cases, the extremities removed, the remainder of the corpse left intact."_

Abby crinkled her nose, plucked a bottle of water from the console, and twisted off the cap. She took a drink then put it back. "That's awful," she said. Flagg simply grunted, too hot and tired to speak unless he absolutely had to. He watched her from the corner of his eye, and ahe stared down at the radio with soft sympathy, her forehead wrinkled cutely. One of the thingd Flagg loved most about Abby was her kindness. She was the type of woman who always put others before herself and was, as far as Flagg knew, the only person on the face of this earth he could trust, him included. Him especially.

It was no wonder, then, that her heart would go out to the hitchhiker.

"Oh, that poor guy," she said. Flagg looked over and spotted a man trudging through the tall grass running along the shoulder. He was about five-five with curly black hair, and wore a faded red T-shirt and tan pants. An olive green rucksack hung across his back, and as Flagg watched, he stumbled and nearly went to his knees. "We should pick him up."

"I dunno," Flagg grumbled. He wasn't keen on the idea of letting a stranger into his car. The world was a fucked place full of fucked up people, and too many times he'd seen acts of kindness lead to damnation.

In the back, Vale craned his neck to get a better look. "He's gonna asphyxiate out there," he worried. "Pull over."

Flagg pursed his lips in thought. They were right, it was far too hot to leave someone on foot, especially when the nearest town was ten miles back. "Alright," Flagg relented, "fine, call me Eddie McDowell, cuz here's my good deed for the day.". He slowed, spun the wheel, and came to a rolling stop. The hitcher, a Hispanic boy about nineteen with freckles and brown eyes, looked over, saw them, and grinned stupidly, his lips peeling back from yellow, crooked teeth.

There's a saying: You can't judge a book by its cover. Flagg disagreed, you could, and before the boy had even taken two steps, Flagg judged him to be simple. His dumb, lopsided grin, his wide, hazy gaze, and the bounce in his step betrayed him as mildly retarded.

Opening the back door, the boy inserted himself into the car, the stench of sour sweat, unwashed body, and dirty feet following him like a cloud of poison gas. Flagg crinkled his nose. "I-It sure is h-h-h-hot out there," the boy stammered. Flagg was surprised by his thick southern accent.

"Yeah it is," Flagg said and put the stick in drive. He waited for a tractor trailer to blast by, then guided the car back onto the road. "I'm Flagg, that's Abby, and that's Vale."

The boy turned to Vale, and Vale nodded politely. "M-M-My name's Bobby J-Jr. I was n-named after my uncle, n-not my pappy. He died before I was born. M-My uncle did."

"Hey, man, I'm sorry to hear that," Flagg said. He had Bobby Jr. pegged as a talker, one of those sorts who won't shut up once they get started. They went on and on and on until you either begged off or told them to can it.

Bobby Jr. slipped the bag off his lap and sat it between his feet. "I-I-It's okay, I-I-I have a big family. A _real _big family. And we're really close too. What did you say your n-n-name was again?"

"Flagg," Flagg repeated.

The Hispanic's tongue darted out like a pink worm and licked his chapped lips. Flagg couldn't help thinking the gesture obscene. "M-My name's B-Bobby Jr. I-I-I was named after my uncle. H-He died before I was born."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Flagg said, then mentally added _again. _"Where are you headed?" He watched Abby from the corner of his eye, the gentle curve of her neck begging to be kissed, and the sweat standing out on her skin to be sucked off. They'd been together nearly three years and she still excited him as much as she did in the beginning. Then, it was purely physical, but after all they'd been through, it was spiritual now as well. He loved her deeply and would do anything for her...and to her, wink wink.

"H-Home," Bobby Jr. said. "I-I live up the road apiece. M-My name's Bobby Jr. I-I was named after my uncle _not _my daddy."

Flagg forced a chuckle. "You don't have to shill yourself, kid," he said, "we know who you are."

Bobby Jr. ignored him. "Y'all can stay for dinner if you want. My sister makes real g-good sausage." He turned to Vale and leaned in. "D-Do you like sausage?"

Vale shrugged one shoulder. "Yeah, I like it."

"My sister makes it _real_ good," Bobby said, and giggled. There was a mad quality to it that disturbed Flagg. "M-My sister...she's...she's real good at a lot of things." His eye twinkled and one corner of his mouth pulled higher than the other.

Abby turned and met Flagg's gaze. _Last goddamn hitchhiker I ever pick up, _he mouthed.

She offered a slow, lazy smile, reached out, and patted his cheek.

"..."M-My sister's real pretty," Bobby was saying, a hazy inflection in his voice. Flagg lifted an eyebrow and stole a quick look over his shoulder. Bobby Jr. leered at an awkward Vale, his uneven teeth nibbling his bottom lip. "H-Her name's L-Loli and she...she's real pretty." He giggled and ran the tip of his tongue over his teeth. "My other sister L-Lyra is real pretty too. S-S-She's a C-Christian."

Just his luck, Flagg thought, he went against his better judgement and picked up a gigantic weirdo. Lovely. No good deed goes unpunished. Eddie McDowell? More like Eddie Dumbass.

"...and then sometimes, I-I-I help her get undressed."

Wait, what?

In the rearview mirror, Vale offered a strained smile. "Oh," he said bemusedly. Bobby leaned in until their noses were almost touching, and Vale scooted uncomfortably away, pinned now against the door. Bobby Jr.'s smile took on a dark, malicious cast, and his eyes swirled with wicked delight.

"Yessir," he said, "a-and then we g-g-get in bed and t-t-t-t-touch each other."

Alright, that was it. "Hey, man," Flagg said into the mirror, "that's a little too much information."

The Hispanic ignored him. "You ever been knuckles deep inside your sister? I have, and when I fuck her, she calls my wee-wee the r-r-r-rocket. "

Abby's face wrinkled in disgust. "Ew."

"Dude, really," Flagg said sternly, "we don't wanna hear that shit."

Vale swallowed and looked at Flagg as if for help. Bobby Jr. stayed where he was for a moment, then sat back, a sullen expression on his face. He crossed his arms and glared down at his feet like an overgrown child. Vale didn't move, was probably afraid to. Flagg let up on the gas and studied the boy in the mirror, ware for signs of danger. Suddenly, Bobby Jr. perked up. He bent over, opened his bag, and rummaged around inside. "Y'all wanna see something really c-c-cool? I-I got this from the g-graveyard." He pulled something out and tossed it into Vale's lap. Vale looked down, and issued a high, girlish scream.

A rotting hand, bluish gray tatters of flesh hanging from its skeletal frame, lay on his crotch, the fingers curled against the palm like the legs of a dead spider. Abby turned in her seat, and went pale. Bobby Jr. giggled dementedly and clapped his palms together like a cymbal banging monkey. Vale held his fists to his chest and shook his head back and forth as if in denial of the macabre gift even now sliding out of his lap. Suddenly, Bobby Jr. had something in his grasp; shooting his arm out, he grabbed Vale by the wrist and slashed his arm with a straight razor. Vale let out a blood curdling wail. A hateful sneer rippled across Bobby Jr.'s features, and in that moment, he no longer looked simple.

He looked _evil._

Abby screamed, and Flagg came alive. He slammed his foot on the brake, and the car came to a jolting halt; Vale hit the back of the driver's seat and Bobby Jr. hit the passenger's. The knife flew from his hand and landed in the center console, its red slicked blade pointing up at the ceiling like a cold, metallic finger. Flagg leaned over, opened the glovebox, and grabbed the .38 he kept there. He twisted around just as Bobby Jr. sat up straight and jabbed it at his head. The madman's face drained of color and his jaw fell open in a perfect O of surprise. He lifted his hands, palms facing out, and trembled. "H-H-Hey, i-i-it was just a joke. I-I-I was only playing."

"Get the fuck out of my car."

Vale whimpered, and Bobby Jr. swallowed thickly. "C-C-Come on, I-I didn't mean nothing b-by it."

Flagg cocked the hammer.

"Alright! Alright!" Bobby fumbled the door open and stumbled out, then snatched his bag from the floor. No sooner than he had it, Flagg hit the gas; the car rocketed forward, and the door slammed closed.

Bobby Jr. jumped back, then his face darkened. Throwing the bag to the ground, he ran after them, his arms waving crazily in the air. "He's following us!" Abby cried.

In the back, Vale held his bloody arm and moaned. "He cut me...that crazy bastard cut me."

Bobby Jr.'s fell rapidly behind, the waning light of the sun bathing him in crimson glow like hellfire. His mouth formed silent oaths that Flagg couldn't hear, though he managed to read _motherfuckers_.

When the psychopath was a blip on the horizon, Flagg eased up on the gas. His heart throbbed sickly against his ribs and he realized he was shaking with nerves. Beside him, Abby stared worriedly back at Vale. "How bad is it?" she asked.

"Not deep," Vale panted, "but it hurts."

Flagg raked his fingers through his hair and checked the rearview mirror. Bobby Jr. was miles back, but somehow he expected the psycho to there, running after them with impossible speed, his teeth bared and his knife raised.

He remembered that it landed in the console and looked at it; the dull gray blade glinted in a stray shaft of sunlight, and a shiver raced up his spine. Being very careful not to cut himself, he pinched it between his thumb and forefinger, winced at the slimy sensation of Vale's blood, and chucked it out the window.

"Here," Abby said, "let me see."

Vale held out his arm and Abby examined the wound with a perturbed frown. "Pick him up, Flagg," Flagg said wryly, "it's really hot outside, Flagg, he's gonna die, Flagg."

"Shut up," Abby snapped, annoyed. "Do we have any Band-Aids?"

"Nope," Flagg said.

"Alcohol? Peroxide? Anything? God knows what kind of germs are on that knife." She tensed when she remembered something. "I-Is that...hand still back there?"

"Yes," Vale moaned and flicked his eyes to it. It lay on the floor, palm facing up.

Abby shivered. "God, you think he really got that from a cemetery?"

"He probably killed someone," Vale said.

"Should we call the cops?"

Flagg broke, whipped out a lighter, and lit the business end of his cigarette. "I'm not calling the cops over this. He's gone and all that's gonna happen is they hold us up. Might even arrest us. Fuck that."

"Well, can we stop?" Abby asked tightly. "Vale needs alcohol and we have to get rid of...that." She nodded to the hand.

Nodding, Flagg said, "Yeah, we'll stop. Just as soon as there's somewhere _to _stop."

He took a drag of his cigarette and exhaled through his nose.

See what he meant? The world's crazy.

At least it was over.

Unbeknownst to him, however, the worst was yet to come.


	2. Off the Beaten Path

**STR2D3PO: Uh...you can't. I deleted it and while I have a copy saved, it's on my PC which died at the end of December 2017. Maybe I can access it one day, but for now, it's one of those precious lost treasures of literature. J/k, obviously, it stinks.**

**LoudRisque: Why doesn't No Way Home count? I happen to think that's probably, all together, an even better story than Reeling in the Years, and as far as Gen 3 sin kids go, it's the only serious story to ever explore the concept. At least to my knowledge. There are a few Gen 3 characters but no one uses them or takes them seriously because almost no one wants to handle the concept. So if you're itching for Gen 3 content, my man, you are SOL. **

**Balrogdemorgothe: It's revealed later on that by this point, the Louds have already been inbreeding for several generations, I never go too deep into lineage, but I imagine Ronnie Anne was a victim of the family that Lincoln raped (with Bobby being another one of their victims), and Bobby Jr. just inherited his father's bad genes. **

**Jason Chandler: It's based on the original and on its second sequel, **_**Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III.**_

**Shaeril McBrown: Please do. There is a disappointing lack of horror stories in this fandom.**

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**Lyrics to _Time of the Season _by The Zombies (1968)**

They stopped at a roadside gas station five miles from where they left Bobby Jr. The hanging metal sign out front, speckled with rust, proclaimed it LAST CHANCE, and for some reason, that didn't sit well with Flagg. The clapboard structure, white paint peeling from it in long, curling strips, sat on the right side of the highway, its ancient pumps standing dutifully by and its overgrown side lawn strewn with decomposing auto parts. A tow truck with a single orange rotating light on the roof was parked near an open garage, and a man in gray coveralls sat in a canned rocker on the covered porch. Flagg pulled in, the car's tires kicked up a choking cloud of dust, and Abby waved her hand in front of her face.

He drew alongside one of the pumps and cut the engine; the man got up and came over, his hands wringing a dirty rag. The desiccated breeze tossed his lank white hair, and as he got closer, Flagg realized he wasn't as old as he first thought. Thirty, _maybe _thirty-five, and beefy, his face was smattered with freckles and his slight overbite put Flagg in mind of a rabbit. His tanned cheeks were smudged with motor oil and his coveralls were so caked with filth they looked like they could stand up on their own...and walk away. He rested one arm on the roof of the car and leaned into Abby's window. The name stitched above his left breast was LOGAN.

"Howdy," he said in an affable tone, "you folks need some gas?"

Flagg considered. They had well over half a tank, but this _was _their last chance to fuel up; apparently nothing existed beyond this point but untamed and uncharted wilderness. "Yeah, top her off," Flagg said, then glanced at Vale in the mirror. His sweaty face was peaked and his nostrils flared. "You Band-Aids and stuff in there?"

"Sure do," Logan confirmed, "someone hurt?" He darted his eyes from Abby to Flagg to Vale, and maybe it was Flagg's imagination, but his face seemed to shine with giddy anticipation, lending him the appearance of an excited boy.

Almost like he _hoped _one of them was hurt.

"He cut himself," Flagg said vaguely and hooked his thumb at Vale.

"Well, we got everything you need for cuts, scrapes, and burns," Logan grinned.

While Abby took Vale inside, Flagg threw open the door, got out, and leaned against the front end closest to the building. He plopped a cigarette into his mouth, lit it, and inhaled, the smoke rolling warmly into his lungs. Logan grabbed one of the hoses from the pump, came around, and shoved the nozzle into the tank. Flagg checked his phone and frowned. Still no service. "How come the cell phones don't work around here?" he asked.

"Someone blew up the tower," Logan said. He chuckled and fondly shook his head. "Second time that's done happened. Company's just stopped trying."

Flagg furrowed his brows. "Blew it up?"

"Yessir," Logan said, "some people round here don't like cellphones. Can't say I do neither. They're nothing but trouble."

There was a bitter edge in his voice, as though cellular phones had personally done him wrong. What was it with the people around here?

Honestly, he didn't care. He just wanted to get the hell to Cali.

Then he remembered they were lost.

Reaching through Abby's window, he snatched the map from the dask, opened it, and laid it on the hood. He studied the red and blue lines representing interstates and secondary roads, and finally puzzled out that they needed to pick up I-73. The only problem was: He had no fucking clue how to get there from here. "Hey," he said and glanced at Logan, "how do you get to Interstate 73?"

Logan yanked the nozzle from the tank, returned it to the pump, and came over. He bent over the map and gave it a cursory look. "There's a dirt road about four miles up," he said haltingly, and nodded in the direction Flagg had been driving. "It's on the right. You take that and it'll bring you to Route 15. You take a left, and just keep going 'til you hit it."

Flagg looked at the map and nodded to himself. Route 15 did indeed meet I-73 north of Newt.

"You want me to check the oil?" Logan asked. "It won't take a minute, and I'll do it free. Don't want you folks breaking down."

Tossing his cigarette onto the ground, Flagg stomped it out. "Sure, I'd appreciate that."

Leaving Logan to it, Flagg crossed the lot and climbed the steps fronting the porch, old wood creaking beneath his feet. Inside, the store was a pit of humid shadows. A tall, severe looking woman with red hair manned the register, a scowl on her face. She tracked Flagg with her eyes as he walked around. "There a bathroom here?" he asked.

"In the back," she grumbled in a Russian accent.

"Thanks," he said. She didn't reply, but he didn't expect her to. He knew a contemptuous bitch when he saw one.

The bathroom was a single toilet gig with dirty tile floors, splintered wood walls, and cracking fixtures. The mirror over the sink was opaque with grime, and the slimy water trickled impotently from the faucet. Jesus Christ, Flagg thought, why are rednecks so fucking dirty? I get it, you live in the south, doesn't mean you have to be a goddamn slob.

Done, he went back into the store. Vale and Abby stood before the cooler lining the back wall, and Flagg walked over. He slipped his arm around Abby's waist and scanned the selection. "Hi," she said.

"Hi," he repeated. "I don't see any booze."

Abby opened her mouth to reply, but the woman cut him off. "We no sell al-co-hol," she said distastefully.

Was she eavesdropping?

A shiver went down his spine, and suddenly, he wanted the hell out of here. He opened the door, releasing a cool puff of air, and grabbed a Mountain Dew at random. He didn't like Mountain Dew but he'd deal with it. "Let's go," he said.

At the counter, he sat his drink down, along Abby's, Vale's, a pack of Band-Aids, and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. The woman glared at him, and it took everything Flagg had not to snap at her. It had been a long day, he was tired, some psychopath left a severed hand in his car, and now this, a random, surly Russian transplant smack dab the middle of the Deep South with no rhyme, reason, or explanation.

"10.50," she said.

Flagg whipped out his wallet, grabbed a crumpled ten and a torn five, and laid it on the counter. "Keep the change," he said.

She made no move to bag his purchases, and with an irritated sigh, he gathered it all into his arms. Outside, Logan slammed the hood and dusted his hands. Abby had Vale sit in the passenger seat with his feet planted on the ground, knelt, and poured alcohol on his wound. He hissed through his teeth and she winced in sympathy. "Sorry," she said.

Flagg went around the front and opened the driver side door. When Logan spoke behind him, he jumped in alarm. "Now, mister," the white haired man said, "I don't judge people, but…" he squinted against the glare of the sun and tilted his head to one side. "Why's there a hand in your car?"

"Long story," Flagg said, "it doesn't belong to us."

Logan looked confused. "It don't?"

"We picked up a hitchhiker," Abby said, "and he pulled that out of a bag."

"Then attacked me with a knife," Vale added.

Logan's brows shot up, and a strange, knowing twinkle crept into his eyes. "He did? You alright? Y'all can't be picking people up like that, lotta crazies in the world."

"Yeah, I've noticed," Flagg said, "especially around here."

He expected Logan to be offended, but inexplicably, he laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks. Abby, Flagg, and Vale watched him warily. Perhaps Flagg was paranoid, but Logan's eyes glinted with the same malicious light as Bobby Jr.'s. "Most everyone's related in these parts and...well...inbreeding happens." He giggled and slapped his knee. "Everyone's a little off here, don't pay 'em no mind."

"Right," Flagg drew and looked at Abby. "You ready?" There was an imploring hilt to his voice.

"Yes," she replied quickly.

Before they left, Flagg used a rag borrowed from Logan to pick up the hand, then wrapped it around. "I'll take it," Logan said, "give him a proper burial." His smile sharpened and a cold wind gusted through Flagg's soul.

Whatever. Fuck this place. I'm out.

Sitting behind the wheel, he started the engine, and Logan stepped back from the window. "That road's four miles up," he said, "you'll know it when you see it."

"Thanks," Flagg said. Something moved in the corner of his eye, and he turned to see the woman standing on he porch, her arms crossed and the hem of her plain, pale pink dress whipping in the strengthening breeze. With her was a little Japanese girl, and long after Flagg drove off, he turned her expression over and over in his head: Watery eyes, downturned lips, knocking knees...she looked scared.

"What's up with this road?" Abby asked, startling him. Vale stared at the passing countryside: Low, barren hills, clusters of trees and tangled underbrush, vast fields, and a blue water tower in the distance. The faded black stenciling on the face screamed LOUDVILLE.

Flagg changed lanes to pass a battered pick up truck with wooden bed sides. "It'll take us to the interstate," he said.

"How far's the interstate?" she asked.

"About twenty miles," he estimated.

She nodded.

From there, they lapsed into companionable silence, the only sound the hum of tires on the pavement. Flagg lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply, letting the smoke out through his nose. He stole glances at Abby, who rested her head against the seat with her eyes closed, and an affectionate smile touched his lips. He wasn't an overtly emotional man, but fierce love and tenderness flooded his chest, and he laid his hand on her leg. Before he met Abby, he was a sad and lonely man who drink too much and ate his dinner over the sink. He was angry, hopeless, and hated the world. Then, like an angel, she entered his life and made everything better. He loved her intelligence, he loved her determination, and most of all, he loved that no matter what came, he could always count on her to have his back. The world is a cold, hard place, and before her, he believed it was every man for himself, that no one ever truly loved or cared for anyone else.

But he was wrong, and despite his reputation as a wry dickhead, he liked being proven wrong.

"Love you," he said.

"Love you too," she replied.

A mile later, the trees flanking the right side of the road fell away, and the landscape opened up, flat and sun-baked. A narrow dirt road appeared, and Flagg took that to be the one Logan mentioned. He slowed and turned onto it, the car's tires dipping into a pothole and jostling Abby from her reprieve. Flagg held the wheel with both hands and let up on the gas. The frame jerked and shook, then the road smoothed out. "Are you sure this is it?" Vale asked. "Doesn't look like it goes to the highway."

"This is it," Flagg said, even though he wasn't entirely sure.

How long did Logan say it was? Did he even say at all? Flagg tried to remember but couldn't. Oh well, guess they'd find out.

Two miles later, with a distant stand of forest way off to the right and open wilderness on the left, a shudder went through the car, and the steering wheel locked in Flagg's hands. A terrible grinding sounded from the engine, and thin white smoke shot out from the creases between the hood and the front end. Flagg's heart dropped. "Son of a bitch," he muttered.

"What's wrong?" Vale asked.

Abby sat up straight and yawned as Flagg pulled to the side of the road. He cut the engine and sat back against the seat...then flashed and punched the wheel. "Goddamn it!"

Ignoring Vale and Abby's questions, he popped the hood, got out, and lifted it, hot metal seering his fingertips. A column of smoke rushed out and wrapped itself around him like an angry spirit, and he waved his hand in front of his face. Abby and Vale got out and stood anxiously on either side of him, their grim expressions like those of mourners at a funeral. Flagg put his hands on his hips and blew a puff of air. "Perfect," he said, "just fucking perfect." He looked around and saw nothing: No roads, no houses, no people, no _life_. He pulled out his cell phone, hoping against hope they'd crossed into a different service area.

They hadn't.

"Fuck," he spat. His temper, frayed and held in check by only threads, snapped, and he slammed the phone hard against the ground.

"Calm down," Abby said softly and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. He shook with rage, and it was all he could do to keep from kicking the headlights in, smashing the windshield, and overturning the damn, stupid car like the Hulk on his period.

The only reason he held back was Abby.

"What now?" Vale asked fearfully.

Now, I fucking walk back to that gas station, Flagg thought. He pulled away from Abby's touch, went to the driver side door, and grabbed his Mountain Dew. Sweat coursed down the back of his neck in hot rivulets and stung his eyes; he'd be lucky to make it a mile before melting like an ice cream cone on a hot sidewalk.

He twisted the cap off and took a drink, then turned to his companions, who watched him expectantly. "I'm gonna walk back to the gas station."

Abby's brow knitted, but she didn't say anything; it was either that or sit here and hope someone happened by. "Alone?" she finally asked.

"Yeah," Flagg said, "you guys stay here and watch the car."

In truth, he didn't want Abby out there. He wasn't sure he'd be able to make it, and he refused to put her through an arduous six mile death march.

"Flagg…" she started sternly.

"Just stay here," he said, "someone might come by."

A look of displeasure flickered across her soft features, and Flagg broke. He went to her and cupped her hips in his hands. "Just stay here, please," he said gently. "I don't wanna leave the car alone."

She opened her mouth to protest further, but snapped it closed again and heaved an irritated breath through her nose. "Fine," she said.

Flagg lingered for a moment, wracking his brain for something to muffle the blow, then gave up and pecked her cheek. "I'll be back soon," he said.

She sighed and touched the side of his face. "Be careful out there."

"I will," Flagg promised. "You're in charge. Protect Vale from hitchhikers, okay?"

Vale rolled his eyes and shook his head.

He kissed Abby again, this time on the lips, and her tongue fleetingly caressed his. "Okay," she said with a mischievous grin, "I'll keep him safe."

"Good girl," Flagg said.

Shoving the bottle into his back pocket, Flagg turned and started down the road with an agitated breath. Just his luck, stranded in the middle of nowhere and forced to Battan his way through the east Texas badlands. "I love you," Abby called.

"Love you too," Flagg replied.

Standing side-by-side, Abby and Vale watched him until he disappeared around a bend. When he was gone, Abby raked her fingers through her damp, tangled hair and pursed her lips. A knot of desolation formed in her chest and enveloped her stomach, throbbing like the palpitations of a panicked heart. It had been a long, strange day, and watching Flagg leave, she got the eerie sense that she would never see him again.

Taking a deep breath, she went to the passenger side, sat down, and propped her feet on the running board. She wrapped her arms around her knees and hugged them to her chest. It was closing in on evening, the scarlet light weak and filtering from the sky, and a coolness infused the breeze that was nice, but not enough to keep her from perspiring. Vale stood by the smoking front end for a moment, then crossed to the back door and sat down. "Of all the places to break down," he said.

"Tell me about it," she said and hanged her head.

"At least you're white," Vale said, "down here, they drag people like me behind pickup trucks."

Abby snorted humorlessly.

"It's true," Vale said, "south's the worst place to be black."

"I think there are worse places to be black, Vale," Abby said. She didn't care about this, didn't care even about the heat, she just wanted Flagg to hurry up and come back to her.

Vale shifted. "Where?" he asked.

"Compton, for one," she replied at length and looked up into the sky - the sun was beginning to set behind the treetops defining the western horizon. "Chicago, DC, New York…"

She trailed off and let the thought hang unfinished between them. Vale was silent for a meditative moment, then said, "So...where other black people are?"

Abby shrugged. "They have gangs there. No gangs here."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Vale said. "I'm still trying to get up out of here."

Neither one spoke after that. Abby stared into the sinking sun and listened for the telltale crunch of gravel under tires, but the only noise was the grating buzz of cicadas in the trees. They only come out every seventeen years, don't they? Something about that struck her as pretentious.

Sighing, she released her knees, grabbed her Coke from the console, and took a long drink. It was starting to get warm, and condensation coated the plastic. Vale took out his phone, swiped his thumb across the screen, and started to play a game. Sounded like Pac-Man. Waka-waka-waka. Abby liked old games, there was a certain charm in their simplicity. Flagg did too. In fact, they met at a truck stop arcade, three aging game cabinets tucked into an out of the way alcove. He was playing Galaga and she waited behind him for her turn, growing increasingly impatient as he fed an endless stream of quarters in. Finally, she leaned over his shoulder. _Hey, bozo, you gonna be done soon? _

_Get lost, lady, I'm going for the high score. _

Being a strong, independent woman, the derisive spin he put on _lady _pissed her off. _With the way you play, you'll never get there. Now move, I wanna play._

He sniffed. _I bet you suck. Go away._

_Ten bucks says I'm better than you, _she retorted.

From there, they took turns playing, and though she looked back on that memory a lot, she couldn't say how the ice between them melted, or how that first kiss happened. It was electric, though, and in a roundabout way, she knew even then that she would never kiss anyone else.

With a sigh, she took out her own phone and checked for service, but predictably, she had none. This is retarded. It's 2019, how can there still be massive dead spots like this? The future is now, the saying went, and she added her own addimum: The future sucks. She was promised flying DeLoreans, self-lacing shoes, hoverboards, and eighties themed cafes, but all she got was shoddy cell reception, 4chan, and video games with amazing graphics but generic gameplay.

Lame.

She scanned the games she had downloaded, but none of them appealed to her right now. She was hot, tired, emotional, and hormonal, all she wanted was to be cradled in Flagg's arms.

And chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate.

"Take _that, _Blinky," Vale said.

She and Flagg met Vale at a video game convention in their native Richmond. He was an artist whose work, while good, went largely ignored by the community. He worked on several homebrew video games, including one called Conazzi Isle that achieved some mainstream success online. They became close to him while developing their own (faled) video game, and he moved into an apartment down the hall from theirs after Flagg pulled a few strings with the landlord (ie, he bribed him). They spent most of their free time together. Abby loved him, but he had the most disgusting fetish for big breasts she'd ever seen. Literally, he liked them so big they blotted out the sun.

Closing out of her phone, she sat it on the dash and sighed.

Hopefully, Flagg would be back soon.

Her hand crept to her stomach and rubbed a lazy, loving circle.

And maybe, tonight, she'd tell him...

* * *

_Doo-doo-da-AHH_

_Doo-doo-da-AHH_

Flagg shuffled down the center of the dirt road with his head hung and his gritty skin flushed hotly. Each step kicked up dust and sent a jolt of pain into his knee. He dragged the back of his hand across his forehead and drew a deep breath.

_What's your name? _

_Who's your daddy?_

_Is he rich like me?_

For some reason that song had been echoing through his head for the past half hour. He couldn't remember the name - something from the sixties. He heard it on the radio every once in a while, and it was in that movie, the one where...he couldn't remember. He was overheated, exhausted, and beginning to wilt; not a state of being conductive to lucid thinking. How long had he been walking? It felt like hours, but from the position of the sun, he surmised it had been forty-five minutes at most. He came to a stop and looked over his shoulder, half expecting to be only feet from the car, but empty road greeted him.

Six miles wasn't very much - under normal circumstances he could walk it in under two hours - but the heat was punishing, and the sunlight singed his exposed flesh. He'd already stopped to rest once, leaning against a split rail fence and sipping his Mountain Dew sparingly, and at this rate, he'd have to stop again.

It couldn't be much farther to the highway. There, he stood a chance of hitching a ride.

He went back to Bobby Jr., and a sardonic laugh bubbled up from his parched throat. Funny how the world works, huh? Hopefully his kindness was repaid and someone picked _him _up.

Probably not.

Ahead, the road bent and trees pressed against it. He was almost to them when something moved in the corner of his eye. He turned, and through a clump of wavering vegetation, he caught a flash of white. He squinted his eyes and lifted his sunglasses. It came again, and he realized what it was.

A house.

Oh, thank Jesus.

He could use their phone, call a tow truck, and be back at the car before sundown.

Putting his glasses back on, he left the road and crossed a lumpy field. More of the house was visible through the foliage now. It was large, two stories, and white with a green roof and dormers. The siding was coated in grime and scum and a small window at the back of the house stood open, the mesh screen rising and falling in the breeze like a sleeping chest. In the side yard, Flagg went around front, where shadows nested in a deep, covered porch. A windchime tinkled and in the distance, the door to a tumbledown outbuilding swung slowly closed.

Flagg paused at the bottom step. The front door was open, but the screen was closed to admit air without inviting bugs. He climbed to the top, went to it, and peered through, his hands cupping his face. Inside, the floors were gleaming wood and the walls covered in floral printed paper. A set of stairs hugged the right wall, and a brief corridor lead to the back, a door open and providing a glimpse at a blindingly red surface. "Hello?" he called.

No response.

He waited for someone to come, but when they didn't, he called out again. "Hello?"

A high, hitching noise drifted forth, and Flagg's forehead creased in confusion. It sounded like...retarded giggling. Strange, but that's what it reminded him of. "Hello?" he asked.

Nothing.

He hesitated, a tiny voice in the back of his head screaming at him to turn around and leave, but instead, he opened the door and leaned in. "Anyone here?"

That giggle again.

What could be making it? He pictured a retarded child in a diaper, and a wry smile played at the corner of his lips. That's probably not what it was at all, but he was curious now. Slipping in, he let the screen door fall closed behind him and made his way down the hall, steps slow, even, clacking on the wood floor. An awful smell, like rotting meat, pinched his nose, and he winced.

_Giggle-giggle. _

"Hello?"

He paused, waited, then went to the door.

Flagg was an observant man, but under the circumstances, he wasn't watching where he was going, and stumbled on the raised threshold. He caught his balance, and froze when a dark shadow fell upon him. He looked up, and his blood ran cold.

A hulking, hunchback giant loomed over him. The world seemed to slow as Flagg took in every horrible detail: Its sloped brow, shining eyes, crooked teeth, sunken, pimple studded cheeks, its dumb, gleeful smile. It wore a T-shirt with HOT STUFF on the chest, tattered shorts, and a bicycle helmet with little slots through which tufts of brown hair stuck at wild angles. SPECIAL #1 LEMY was scrawled in crayon across the front. Its tongue, long and lolling like a dog's, fell from its chapped lips and an excited grunt escaped its bobbing throat.

It lifted a ball peen hammer, and Flagg's stomach dropped. He started to scream, but the weapon fell in a deadly arc, slamming hard into his skull with a hollow _thud_ and shattering it into a million pieces. Jagged shards of bone tore into his soft brain like shrapnel, and blood burst from his ears and nose. His sunglasses came askew and he dropped limply to the floor, his legs twitching spasmodically, boot heels tapping out a frenetic distress code as his dying brain sent garbled and panicked signals to his every part of his body.

The creature threw the hammer aside, bent over, and grabbed the back of Flagg's shirt in both hands. Giggling, grunting, and shaking with the primal thrill of the hunt, it dragged the body over the threshold and into the kitchen. Skulls stared sightlessly from perches on the counter, and macabre mobiles made of bones dangled from the ceiling. It laid Flagg out on a roughly hewn workbench and stared down at him with stupid wonderment, its feeble mind sparking like a wet match in a dark cave. The man was still now, blood and brain matter oozing from his ruined head, and the creature prodded its uneven teeth with the tip of its too-long tongue. The monster was afraid of people, because people might hurt it; why did this people come into its house? What did the man want? To hurt him and his family?

Licking its lips and vowing that the people would never get the chance, the thing reached down and picked something up.

A chainsaw.

It pulled a cord, and the instrument coughed into life with a sharp, reverberating roar.

As the skulls watched powerless, the thing carved Flagg like a Thanksgiving turkey, and all the while…

...it giggled.


	3. Taken

**Jason Chandler: Horror movies are something I can geek out over the way some people can geek out over anime or superhero movies, so I'm going to try really hard not to write a huge wall of text. First, I consider the remakes completely separate from the original franchise, so I don't rank them together. The remake and its sequel were okay as standalone movies, but lacked a lot of the things that really make a TCM movie for me. My favorite is, of course, the original, followed by part three, part two, and part four. I didn't like 3D very much and I haven't seen the new one. As for the remake series, I like The Beginning more than the 2003 movie. **

Crickets chirped a nocturnal symphony and blessedly cool air swept the night, bringing with it the perfume scent of honeysuckle and wildflowers. Abby, leaning impatiently against the car's rear bumper with her arms crossed, stared into the darkness, willing Flagg to emerge, with or without help. Vale, his phone long since dead, paced tensely back and forth, his hands shoved into the pockets of his cargo shorts. An owl hooted somewhere close by, and he started with a tiny _eek_.

Abby sighed and tapped her foot on the ground. The urge to take out her phone and check the time again came over her, but she stayed herself. It was past seven and Flagg had been gone for over two hours. That wasn't very long...maybe not even long enough to reach the gas station...but to her, it might as well be forever. Anything could have happened to him, and even now, he could be lying in a ditch, hurt or dead.

That thought turned Abby's stomach, and she breathed a frustrated sigh. If he wasn't back in ten minutes, she decided, she was going to go looking for him, screw the car.

Behind her, the back door slammed, making her jump, and Vale appeared beside her, a bottle of Pepsi in his hand. He leaned heavily against the bumper, twisted the lid, and drained it. With a sigh of contentment befitting a advertising campaign, he tossed it aside, crossed his arms, and shifted into a more comfortable position. "Anything out there?" he asked by way of conversation. The humid darkness pressed insistently against them like a sodden blanket, lit only by the ghoulish face of the haze shrouded moon, its faint glow barely penetrating the muggy night.

"No," she said, her voice sounding small and overwrought to her own ears. She hugged herself tightly and rocked on her heels. "I'm about to go after him."

Vale stiffened. "I don't know if that's such a good idea," he fretted, "we don't even know where we are. If we go off in the dark, we'll get lost and God only knows what'll happen to us."

Though she loved him like a brother, Abby had to admit: Vale was a little bitch. He was what she considered kind of a cuck: Weak, limp-wristed, and a sniveling, coward, the kind of guy who runs screaming for safety at the first sign of trouble. When they were driving and entered a bad neighborhood, he hurriedly locked the doors and worried himself sick until they were out again, and if there was a fight, he'd vanish faster than a pound of coke at Tony Montana's house. Flagg told her to protect him, and he was only half joking; Vale couldn't defend himself from a wet paper bag with the sniffles. As much as she loved him, however, her first priority was Flagg...first, that is, after the baby.

"All I have to do is follow the road," the said with a confidence she didn't fully feel, "it's a straight shot back to the highway." She glanced over her shoulder. The road continued in the direction they'd been following, how far to the blacktop, she didn't know. "You go that way and see if you can find a phone or a ride."

The color bled from Vale's face and his eyes grew to twice their normal size. "Y-You want me to go out there? _Alone?" _

"I don't know about you," Abby said with strained patience, "but I don't want to spend all night out here...and if Flagg's hurt, we need to help him." A vision of Flagg crumpled in a roadside culvert, broken from a hit and run and crying weakly out for help, danced mockingly through her mind, and a cold draft blew through her soul. Goosebumps ran up and down her arms, and though it hadn't been ten minutes yet, she pushed away from the bumper and took a steeling breath. "I'm going. If it makes you feel better, take the gun."

She turned to him, and he whipped his head shamefully away, perhaps to hide the fear tattooed on his features. She sighed, went to him, and put her hands firmly on his shoulders as though to communicate the gravity of her emotions. Vale tentatively met her gaze and sucked his lips in, a nervous tick he displayed when he was distressed. "Look, I'm just a little on edge, okay? I-I don't like Flagg being out there by himself. It's been over two hours, he should have been back by now."

That wasn't true - he might still be walking - but she couldn't take staying here and sitting on her hands anymore. The possibility existed that he needed her, and she wasn't going to play tiddlywinks with Vale while the man she loved was in dire straits.

"I _need _you," she said fiercely.

Vale gave a jerky nod. "O-Okay, yeah, I'll go."

"Thank you," she said.

Five minutes later, they took off in opposite directions, Vale heading east and Abby west. Turning around and walking backwards, she watched him go into the night like a man into the maw of a great, hungry beast. "Be careful!" she called.

He raised one hand to indicate he heard, then let it drop again. She watched until she could no longer see him, then faced forward again. Thin, silvery luminescence dappled the lane and high above, the north star glimmered like an all seeing eye. The back of her neck prickled with the feeling of being watched, and she forced an apprehensive chuckle. She laid a protective hand on her stomach and tried, as she had several times over the past week, to feel the life growing in her womb. As always, she felt only her flabbier-than-she-liked belly; there was no electric spark denoting the presence of something special, no magical sensation, nothing meaningful or pregnant with significance (pun 100 percent intended). Carrying a child was, to her, a sacred honor, and she was bowled over by the fact that there was absolutely no physical manifestation of it.

At least yet.

Soon - in two month, maybe less - her body would begin to change; her stomach would swell, her feet would ache, her back would hurt, her breasts would be tender...and she would relish every single moment of it. She read once that many women don't feel their babies kick during their first pregnancy, and was bitterly disappointed. She hoped hers and Flagg's baby kicked, wanted to feel it moving so badly it made her sick. When she imagined the future, she saw herself big as a house and glowing with happiness, sitting up in bed and pressing her hand to her massive stomach, giggling when the baby kicked. So far, she hadn't given much thought to it actually being in her arms, a tiny bundle with a pink, scrubbed face, because even _thinking _of thinking of it brought tears to her eyes.

She found out she was pregnant a week ago. She'd been sick in the mornings for several days in a row and felt indefinitely _different_. She took a test and it came back positive; sitting there alone in the bathroom of hers and Flagg's apartment, perched on the closed toilet lid and gaping at the double lines in the little window, she was so overcome with joy that she squealed, then broke down in tears.

They had been trying for so long to concieve, and no matter what they did or how many times they did it, Flagg's seed just would not take root in her. She was beginning to think there something wrong with one of them (her, she knew, it was her fault), and though he never once told her so, she knew he was disheartened too. They both wanted a large family and though they loved each other dearly, not having many children to love, guide, and nurture would leave a hollow chasm always between them.

It all worked out, though. She was going to bear Flagg's baby and make him a daddy, and that excited her so much that even now, in her harried state, a giddy smile spread across her lips. She was waiting until they got back to Richmond to tell Flagg, but she resolved to surprise him with it as soon as they were alone, maybe even tonight.

By now, she was well away from the car, the night wrapped around her like the coils of a leering snake. The moon shone overhead, but its light barely touched the land and she could barely see her own hand. Trees pushed up against either side of the road and blocked out the sky, plunging her impossibly deeper into the void. Her heartbeat, hitherto steady, picked inexplicably up, pounding like a drum, and her step faltered. The tingle in her neck returned, stronger this time, and her middle knotted in dread. Her skin began to crawl, and she was suddenly sure that the night was filled with watchers tracking her every move like wrathful phantoms.

She took a deep, shaky breath and let it out through her nose. She told herself she was being stupid, and while she knew that, she couldn't help feeling unsettled. She stopped and cast a look around, but nothing was there..or at least, nothing she could see. "Hello?" she asked, hating the tremble in her voice. It made her sound weak, and if there was one thing Abby was not, it was weak. Never had been, and never would be, especially not now. Her baby needed her to be strong.

With another breath, she started walking again.

* * *

Vale reached the blacktop less than twenty minutes after setting out. It stood empty in either direction, its surface drenched in moonlight like a frozen river winding through a blasted nightmare hellscape. He stopped at the intersection and shot an uncertain glance over his shoulder. The trees overhanging the dirt avenue rustled in the wind, and if he listened close, he was terrified he would be able to make out words. He chewed his bottom lip and considered his next move. Should he keep going, or should he go back to the car? Like he told Abby, they had no idea where they were. He studied the map enough to know that the area they were currently in was largely devoid of life, the trees, hills, and fields wide, open, and alone. He could walk twenty miles in either direction and come across nothing - no buildings, no phones, not even people.

Was that worth it?

He could return to the car. There, he would be safe; the vast Texas countryside was a raging sea, and the car was his ship. He would be okay just so long as he stayed aboard. If he dove into the water, he would drown. Any number of things could happen to him out here from becoming irretrievably lost to falling victim to animal attacks. Coyotes, bobcats, and other large, vicious mammals were known to stalk the wastes; he didn't know if there were any around here, but he bet there were. He bet there were bears too, and vultures who wouldn't wait for him to die...they'd just swoop down and take him alive. Weren't chupacabras in Texas now? A quivering pang cut through his center and his knees started to wobble. He should really go back.

The only thing that stopped him was Abby. Earlier, when she looked at him and said she needed him, her eyes flashed with earnest intensity. Abby and Flagg were like family to him - running and hiding when they were counting on him would be the ultimate and most unforgivable betrayal he could ever commit.

For that reason, and that reason alone, he turned right and started down the shoulder of the highway. Tall tangles of grass rustled against his bare shins like hands reaching from shallow graves, and his mind went back to the hitcher. The wound on his forearm stung at the memory of the blade biting into his flesh. What if he ran into him? God, what if he was out there right now, observing from the brush, waiting to strike?

Terror gripped his chest and he stopped to survey his surroundings. To his right, a low, tree lined hill followed the asphalt, and on the other side, dense forest crowded the road's edge. If someone was out there, they could be hiding in a million different places.

He forced those thoughts aside and got back underway. He should have brought the gun. He almost did, but guns scared him. He was convinced that if he so much as touched one, it would discharge with a deafening BANG and kill either him or someone else. He wasn't the most coordinated guy in the world and would probably wind up dropping it if he tried to pull it on a foe.

For a time, he forged ahead, kicking through snarled undergrowth and stumbling on hidden rocks. At one point, he stepped into an unseen gopher hole and pitched forward, his ankle twisting and hot pain streaking up his leg. He hit the ground face first and cried out. Drawing himself to a sitting position, he checked himself for injuries, and when he touched his ankle, he hissed through his teeth. Broken, he thought, it was broken, and he was damned to sit here until the carrion creatures came for his flesh. He pushed gingerly to his feet and tested it. Not as bad as he feared, more of a dull discomfort than a sharp agony, but it was still bad enough that he walked with a limp.

After crossing a dry creek bed, the road bent to the left and started up a steep incline. The terrain became more rugged and trees seemingly taller, looming over him like monsters in a child's fairy tale. Their high boughs prevented the moon's rays from reaching him, and like Abby two miles east, he was stricken blind.

He was just about to give up and go back when the unmistakable drone of an approaching car filled the night. His heart leapt into his throat, and he turned just as a set of bright white headlamps appeared around the curve. Oh, thank _God_. He waved his hands over his head, and the car slowed. It pulled abreast of him and came to a rolling stop, an off brown tow truck with an angled wench and a single orange rotating light on the roof.

Thank God _again. _

He hobbled over and pulled open the passenger side door, triggering the dome light. A woman in gray coveralls sat behind the wheel, her dirty blonde hair tucked up under a white and red baseball cap with a mesh back. A confusion of papers, litter, and tools covered the bench seat; the upholstery was gashed in spots, yellow padding poking out.

"Am I happy to see you," Vale said as he climbed in. "My friends and I broke down a few miles back."

"That so?" she asked in a thick southern accent. She put the truck into drive and pulled off, "where at?"

Vale thought for a moment. "Uh...there's a dirt road...it connects this highway to another one."

The woman nodded. "Alright, yeah, I know where that is. Y'all said you got friends?"

"Yeah, they went in the other direction for help."

Slowing, the woman spun the wheel and pulled a quick U-turn. Vale studied her from the corner of his eye: Full lashes, pouty lips, delicate features, plain but not unattractive. In the green glow emanating from the dashboard, the name stitched above her right breast was revealed, red thread on a white background: LYAH. "We better go 'n' look for 'em then," she said, "it's dangerous 'round here at night."

"I was a little worried about coyotes," he admitted with a nervous laugh.

"Oh, they don't bother people none. Now, them bobcats do. I seen one pounce a full grown man once, ate his throat and everythin'." She gave a brisk laugh and shook her head. Vale shuddered at the mental image of a man's throat being torn out and rubbed his bare arms for warmth. "You be surprised what's out in them woods. They look empty, but trust me, they ain't."

Vale glanced uneasily out the window. He was just out there. Exposed. Vulnerable. The way he saw it, he was lucky to be alive! "I bet no one around here leaves their house at night," he remarked.

"Nah, we're used to it. Fact is, I like bein' out at night."

The road was ahead on the left. "You're a brave woman," he said.

Without warning, Lyah slammed on the brakes, and Vale jerked hard against the seatbelt, then back into the seat.

Lyah, hands clutching the wheel so tightly her knuckles were white, favored him with a bellicose glare. Her face, not so delicate now, was hard and her eyes narrowed to hateful slits. The atmosphere turned instantly suffocating, and Vale's heartbeat sped up.

"What did you say?" she asked, her voice low and dripping with menace.

Vale blinked in bewilderment. He wracked his brain, trying to find what he could have said to offend her, but came up empty. "I-I said you're b-brave."

She sneered. "You said somethin' else. You called me somethin'."

"N-No, I-I didn't. I-I just said you're a brave a woman for -"

Lyah's jaw clenched and her nostrils flared angrily. Her face rippled like the surface of a pond and her chest rapidly rose and fell as she sucked air into her lungs. "Do I look like a woman to you?" she demanded.

Vale's mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. Yes, she did look like a woman to him.

"Do I look like a fuckin' woman to you?" she asked again, her voice rising. She threw one hand up, and Vale flinched with a cry. "What makes you think I'm a woman? Are you fuckin' blind?"

"N-No, I'm sorry, I -"

"I'M A FUCKIN' MAN!" she bellowed. Her eyes bulged from their sockets and fat veins stood out on the side of her neck. She looked like the SJW from that "triggered" meme.

Vale's heart was blasting into his ribs now, each frenetic beat sending pangs of agony through his body. "O-Okay, I-I'm sorry…" he trailed off then added a placating, "sir." Vale was bisexual himself and thought of himself as a "femboy." At a glance, he was soft, fragile, and womanish in his features and build. Being part of the LGBT community, even on a periphery level, he was sensitive to transgendered people. He was still a normal person, however, and when someone was obviously female, he didn't think twice about applying the appropriate label.

Usually, the worst rebuke he got was a terse correction.

But not now. Lyah shook with rage and her lips peeled back from her teeth like a raid dog preparing to strike. She leaned over, and Vale shrank back against the door, one arm going defensively up and the other hand clawing for, but not finding, the door handle. "I'M A MAN! I'M A MAN! I'M A MAN!"

She lunged for him at the same moment he yanked the handle; the door popped open and he spilled out, heart in throat. He hit the ground ass first, then, blasting with animal fear, he scrambled to his feet. Behind him, Lyah jumped out of the truck, staggered, and fell to one knee with a pained hiss. "You motherfuckin' sumbitch, come back here!"

The land thrust up and sloped back from the highway. Pushing through the excruciating ache in his ankle, Vale climbed the hill and reached the top. Trees dotted the summit, moonlight filtering through their interlaced branches, and throwing caution to the wind, Vale ran as fast as he could like a field mouse from a murderous hawk. Blood pounded in his temples and the crazy thudding of his heart roared in his ears. A hot stitch burned across his side and every time his bad foot hit the ground, bolts of searing electricity rent his leg. His breath exploded from his lips in series of ragged pants, and his spine tingled.

Without warning, something crashed into him from the side, low and fast, and he hit the ground so hard the air rushed from his lungs. He issued a plaintive wail that choked off when small fists rained furiously down on the back of his head. He tried to roll onto his back, but Lyah straddled him, her knees caging him and pinning him in place. "You motherfuckin' goddamn cocksuckin' piece of nigger lookin' shit!" Vale screamed and stars burst across his vision. Warm liquid trickled from his nose and one of his teeth was knocked from his head. Darkness stole over him, and for a long time he lay dazed a drift of dead leaves.

The next he knew, Lyah was tying heavy rope around his hands, pulling tight. He moaned, and grabbing a handful of his hair, she yanked his head back. "You done messed with the wrong _man_." She drew the word slowly out as if to make her point, then dragged him to his feet. His watery knees buckled and he sank to the ground. "You gonna see," she said through her teeth, "you think I'm a woman but you gonna see I ain't. You act like first impressions are the only thing that matters, but just you wait. I'm gonna put my dick so far in your ass you gonna puke it back up."

Vale started to cry.

* * *

Abby paused, slapped her hand against the rough bark of a gnarled tree, and hanged her head. She inhaled, then let it out, inhaled, then let it out. "You're making mommy tired, aren't you?" she asked the child in her belly.

It did not respond.

She didn't know how far along she was, but she was pretty sure it wasn't enough that the baby was sapping her energy. Being pregnant, forming a whole new life inside of you, is, she read, physically exhausting work; you're not aware of doing anything, but your body is constantly in motion, and the baby is always drawing nourishment from you. That, she imagined, came later, but perhaps it didn't. She'd never been pregnant before and though she'd read a lot on the subject, it's one of those areas you'll never really know until you explore it for yourself.

Either way, she'd only been walking for roughly half an hour and already she was spent. Her feet were sore, her legs quivered, and a band of tightness squeezed her stomach and lower back. The night was cool, but lukewarm sweat still bathed her face and arms, and when she took a deep breath, her chest stung. As much as she wanted to find Flagg and make sure he was okay, she was starting to think of going back. She loved Flagg, but the baby came before him...and even before her. Were these pains normal, she would simply ignore them and press on as she always had, but now, with their little boy or girl nestled in her stomach (even if it was only a zygote at this point), things were different. It was too early for her to hurt the baby by simply walking down the road, but knowing that didn't alleviate the dread weighing down her chest.

She looked up at the moonlight avenue and carefully considered her next move. The car was only two miles back, if that. She could be there in under an hour. If she kept going in the direction she was now...she couldn't say. She thought back to that afternoon and struggled to remember if there were any houses or buildings between the gas station and here, but couldn't. She was a little too keyed up from the encounter with Bobby Jr. to pay attention to things like that. She didn't recall seeing anything, and in that case, she'd be stranded in the middle of nowhere hoping a car came by...and that it stopped for her, which wasn't assured. She bit her lower lip and looked left, then right, left, then right, a woman at a metaphorical crossroads. Back to the car, an anchor of safety, or into the great Unknown? She laid her hand on her stomach as if to consult the child within, but it offered no suggestions.

Finally, with a sigh of surrender, she turned back and started for the car. She was five steps into her new course when something caught her attention. A light shining through the foliage to her right. She stopped, squined, and rocked forward on her heels.

A house.

Halle-frickin-lujah.

Changing course, she left the road and picked her way down a slight embankment. At the bottom, a wide, lumpy field stretched to a stand of dark trees wavering in the wind. Beyond, the light twinkled invitingly, like a low, ambient fire in a hearth. Stepping carefully to avoid holes, jutting rocks, and other concealed pratfalls, she made her way across the meadow, the light drawing closer like a ship in the night. She was almost to the treeline when she kicked something hard and small. Her feet started to tangle, and her heart leapt. She pinwheeled her arms to keep from going down, got her balance, and rolled her neck like a punch drunk pugilist coming back for round two. She spotted her adversary ahead, resting against the base of a tree, round and glowing ethereal white in the moon.

There you are, you little bastard. Can't you see there's a baby on board? She dug in her pocket for her phone, pulled it out, and went to the flashlight app. She walked over and trained the beam on it.

When she saw what it was, her stomach dropped.

A human skull, its gaping eye sockets seething with shadows and its lipless mouth arranged in a ghastly frozen smile. The phone trembled in her hand and horror washed through her like cold sludge. A twig snapped, and she jerked the light up. A terrible, towering thing stood before her, its tongue lolling from its mouth. In an instant, a motor kicked in to life, and it held a chainsaw high over its head. Abby screamed so hard the edges of her vision grayed and the phone dropped from her hand, landing in the grass and casting its corpse glow on the the thing's craggy, pimple scarred face.

Rational thought gave instantly away to survival instinct, and suddenly, she was running back toward the road, her arms and legs pumping in time with the spasming tempo of her heart. The thing lumbered after, swinging the saw back and forth. High, stupid giggles trailed behind it, and another ear-piercing scream ripped from Abby's throat. Her foot hit something, and for an awful second she was airborne, then she sprawled face first in the dirt, her jaw clacking and her brain jostling inside her skull like ball bearings in a drum. The revving motor swelled as the creature came closer; howling, Abby pushed shakily to her feet and started running again, her feet sailing over the ground.

She reached the road and pounded up the embankment, sparing a quick glance over her shoulder. The thing was less than fifteen feet behind her and closing fast with shocking speed. Delirious, verging on hysteria, she ran across the road and into a stand of trees on the other side, barely aware that branches and briers were slapping her face, tearing at her skin, drawing blood. A fallen tree appeared ahead, and without even thinking, she leapt over it, stumbled, then darted away. She looked back again; the thing was cutting tangles of undergrowth to clear itself a passage, white smoke rising from the chainsaw exhaust. Abby turned back around and pushed herself harder, putting the psychopath far behind. She smashed through a screen of foliage, and the earth gave out beneath her. Screaming, she sprawled forward, hit the ground, and rolled head over heels down a hill. She caterwauled like a dying animal and landed in a ditch with a breathless _oof_.

For a moment, she laid there on her stomach, dazed and gasping for breath. The chainsaw was a distant whine and warm weariness overcame her. She was safe now...she could sleep.

Then she thought of her baby and her heart lurched. If she passed out, she would die...but most importantly, her baby would die.

Summoning all the strength she could, Abby staggered to her feet. The highway ran before her, and she blinked in surprise. The chainsaw cut out, and the silence worried her more than the deafening roar.

She took a step forward and winced at the pain in her knee. Ignoring that, she limped into the road and shambled right. Hot, whimpering exhalations puffed from her heaving chest and her ankle throbbed like an abscessed tooth. The chainsaw echoed through the forest, louder and closer, and a scream jerked from her throat. "HELP ME! PLEASE, GOD, HELP ME!"

Her voice rang like thunder in the night. The chainsaw cut out again and she issued a high, wordless shriek.

Just then, headlights appeared in front of her, filling the world and stinging her eyes. She froze, then, realizing she was saved, she ran at them, waving her arms over her head. The car slowed, and red and blue lights flashed on its roof.

A cop.

"HELP ME!" Abby screamed.

The door opened and a man in a brown uniform and a white Stetson got out, his body tense. Abby limped over, and he watched her come with furrowed brows. She reached him and started to speak, but before the words were out, he twisted her arm behind her back and slammed her against the hood. Red pain erupted in the center of her skull. "You, my friend," he said in a thick Texas accent, "are under arrest."

Under arrest? "Wait, no -"

The cop slapped a pair of cold metal handcuffs on her wrists and closed them so tight that agony enveloped her arm. He pulled her roughly to her feet and spun her toward the back door. "I could hear you hootin' and hollerin' two miles away," he said and shoved her. Abby's head spun. "That's called disturbin' the peace 'round here."

He opened the door and started to push her in, but she came alive and thrashed in his grasp. Growling, he wrapped his arms around her from behind in a bear hug and dragged her off the ground. She screamed and kicked, her head whipping from side to side. "Stop resistin'," he spat. He squeezed and her eyes bugged out of her head. She threw herself left and right and the cop crossed one bare, burly forearm over her throat. "I said stop, you little bitch, or I'm gon' pop your head off."

The fight ran out of Abby, and the cop shoved her into the car. He knelt, reached down, and picked up a burlap sack from the floor. Abby's eyes widened and she tried to back away, but he dragged her forward, slipped it over her head, and pulled the string tight around her neck. Darkness came over her, and the hopelessness of her situation hit her like a fist to the face. Tears sluicded down her cheeks and she began to cry in earnest.

"Shut the hell up," the cop hissed. His hand struck her face and her head whipped to one side, slobber flying from her lips. "You're lucky I didn't shoot you."

Abby sank to the seat, curled up, and wept bitterly.


	4. Hell House

**Guest: I answer you at the bottom.**

Vale drifted in and out of consciousness, disjointed sounds and images penetrating the fog in his brain. He was slumped against cool glass, his eyelids fluttering and blood gushing from his nose, then he was being pulled out of the truck and dragged across a dusty dooryard. "He's heavier 'n he looks," a man grunted. Stars twinkled in the clear night sky, then blinking yellow light stung his eyes. Darkness came over him again, and didn't clear until he was being forcibly shoved into a chair. Faces floated over him, Lyah, grinning devilishly, and the white haired man from the gas station, his brown eyes sparkling with sadistic glee. He knelt, lashed Vale's right hand to the wooden arm with a heavy rope, and knotted it. Vale's ears rang and his head swayed drunkenly back and forth.

They were in a kitchen lit by the muted glow of overhead lights, cabinets and counters, dirty paper peeling from the wall in long strips. A white stove stood against one wall, a tall metal pot on one of the burners. Wind chimes dangled from the ceiling. Vale blinked, and realized that they weren't wind chimes at all but long strings threaded through human bones: fingers, toes, and others for which he had no name. Skulls favored him from the counter with wide, gaping sockets and fleshless smiles. Flies buzzed over the crowded sink, and a plate next to the stove bore an assortment of what looked like body parts. Vale spied a hand, and he sucked a reflexive breath of hot, foul smelling air.

A table lay before him, its surface rough and scarred. Across from him, a being that resembled Jabba the Hutt leered hungrily, its beady black eyes lost in the rippling folds of its face. It flicked its tongue out and suggestively lapped its moist, pink lips. It wore a sleeveless floral mumu, its massive, gelatinous arms rippling like pallid sheets as it shifted its titanic girth. Blonde hair covered its swollen head, a tiny cowlick waving like a mocking hand. It rasped for breath as though it had just exerted itself, and its fat sausage fingers kneaded the edge of the table. Something moved in his periphery, and he turned his head to find a thin woman with shoulder length blonde hair clad in a simple blue dress standing to one side supervising. Her lips were pressed severely together and her arms crossed savagely over her scrawny chest. Vale opened his mouth to speak, but only a broken moan came out.

"Found him tryna get away," Lyah explained. Their gazes locked and her smile sharpened at the corners. "He's lucky no bobcats got him."

Logan snickered and got to his feet, his hands going to his ample hips. "He sure is," he said, "lots of critters out there." He leaned over Vale, and the black man's heart stopped mid-beat. "And they just love that dark meat." His rank breath broke across Vale's face, and he turned away. The thin woman glared sourly, her face lined with wrinkles and her blue eyes like flecks of ice. "What 'bout the other?" Logan asked. "The woman?"

"Lemtard went after her," she said.

The woman? Abby.

Vale's chest crushed and his stomach churned. Did she take the gun? He tried to remember, but his head hurt and thinking was hard; everything before the truck was hazy, like visions glimpsed through thick mist. A chair creaked, and Vale darted his eyes to the blob; it stared at him with a lopsided little grin that sent shivers down his spine. "Can we have him tonight?" she asked huskily.

"Liena, you know you're on a diet," Lyah said, "you can't have no dark meat."

A look of downtrodden desolation crossed Liena's face, and she sent her eyes to the table in the most obvious hangdog expression Vale had ever seen. "But I like dark meat," she skulked.

"You gotta lose some of that weight first," Lyah said, "then you can have it."

Logan crossed to an old fashioned refrigerator, yellow linoleum cracking underfoot, and took out a bottle of beer while Lyah dropped into a chair next to Liena. Another skull, this one cracked and pockmarked with craters, stared up at Vale from the center of the table, next to a wooden bowl full of what looked like human teeth. Lyah grabbed it, pulled it close, and sprinkled it with salt, then plopped a handful into her mouth. "Want some?" she asked Liena.

"Yes, please." The fat woman dipped her hand in and shoved it to her lips.

"Don't swallow 'em," Lyah said.

Where was he? God, what kind of awful fucking place was this?

Logan leaned against the counter and used a bottle opener to pry the cap off his beer; the tall woman let her arms fall to her sides and went over to the stove. "Supper almost ready?" he asked.

"Shortly," the woman said over her shoulder.

Lyah and Liena swished the teeth back and forth in their mouths like hard candies, and Vale finally found his voice. "L-Let me out. P-Please. I'm sorry, just please let me go."

"You ain't goin' nowhere," Lyah said around her snack, "we ain't had dinner yet."

The tall woman lifted the lid off the pot and stirred the contents with a wooden spoon; Vale could only imagine what was inside. "P-Please," he begged, "I-I won't tell anyone, j-just let me go."

He meant it, too. He wouldn't tell anyone - he'd never look back or even think about this. He didn't even know what was going on, didn't care, God, he just wanted to leave and go home. "Please," he repeated, tears welling in his eyes.

"Here come the wah-wahs!" Lyah taunted. Logan threw his head back and let out a faux cry, and swallowing like she was told not to, Liena fisted one hand to the corner of her eye, her arm fat jiggling. Lyah joined Logan's moaning, and their voices rose in a crescendo of mocking, dog-like howls. Lyah slammed her fist against the table and Liena's titanic chest and stomach hitched with her stifled laughter.

"_Pweez let me go," _Logan pouted.

"I ain't gon' tell no one," Lyah said.

Vale's tears fell faster and his skull throbbed with clawing panic. Lyah tilted her head back and belted out a long, doleful bray, and the tall woman cringed. "Will y'all hush?" she spat.

The three fell silent like throwing a switch.

"Y'all actin' like a bunch of damn fools." She slammed the pot lid angrily down and threw the spoon onto the stove. Liena hung her head and Lyah darted her gazed scoldedly to the table, sucking on the loose teeth like a reprimanded baby on its pacifier. Logan simply took another drink of his beer and belched. "He's takin' too long," she grumbled. "He shoulda been back already." She crossed to the back door, opened it, and leaned out, here head turning from side to side as she scanned the night. Vale sucked his quivering lips into his mouth and tried to keep from breaking down, but the tears came anyway. "Put somethin' in his damn mouth," the woman snapped and closed the door. "I don't wanna hear it."

Logan sat his bottle down. "'Right." He opened a drawer and dug around, then brought out a dish cloth. He came up behind Vale, stretched it out like a mob hitman with a length of piano wire, and pulled it around Vale's head. The fabric bunched in his mouth and he tried desperately to push it out with his tongue, but Logan knotted it tight. Vale let out a muffled cry, and Logan's fist slammed into the back of his skull, driving his face to the table. "Shut your goddamn mouth, boy," Logan hissed. "Don't no one wanna hear you."

Vale lifted his head and looked frantically around the room like a cornered animal for salvation, but there was none to be had. The tall woman stood by the back door with her arms crossed and her foot tapping an impatient rhythm on the linoleum, lending her the appearance of a displeased mother waiting for her wayward teenage son to come home drunk.

"I'm sure it's alright, Aunt Lori," Logan said and shuffled over to his beer. "That boy don't know much, but he can hunt." He spoke with the utmost confidence. Vale, woozy and sick to his stomach from the constant blows to the head, fought to keep from passing out again, certain that if he did, he would never wake up.

Lori's nostrils flared and her lips twisted bitterly. "I don't like it, he shoulda been back here ten minutes ago. I bet he messed it up somehow." She broke, went back to the stove, and braced her hands on the edge. She shook her head back and forth and took a deep, calming breath. Lyah leaned over the bowl, spat the teeth out, then shot Vale a dirty look. She presented her neck, pressed her thumb to her throat, and slowly mimed cutting.

Vale moaned.

"Get in the pantry and gimme that cornbread mix," Lori said in general.

Draining his beer, Logan went to do as Lori asked, and Vale sucked deep breaths through his nose. He was close to hyperventilating and if he didn't get a hold of himself, he would devolve into a quaking mess. God, he hoped Abby was alright.

Logan carried a box of cornbread mix over to the stove and sat it on the counter. Lori snatched it up and tore it open, her movements curt and quick. "If he ain't back soon, I want you to take the truck and go lookin' for him."

"Alright," Logan said.

Vale tested his hands, but his bonds were too strong. He flicked his eyes around the room once more, his mind racing. There was nothing he could do - he was stuck, trapped, at the mercy of a group of sadists and God only knew what was going to happen to him. His breathing increased and he squeezed his eyes closed. If he gave in to panic, he would die. He forced himself to calm down. He had to think...there had to be something, some way of getting out. He attempted to roll his wrist, but the rope bit into his flesh. His fingers were numb and cold, the blood flow cut off.

When the back door opened, Vale opened his eyes and turned, his mouth falling open in horror at the _thing _in the threshold. Six feet tall, maybe more, with a hump on its back, scraggly, greasy hair veiling its eyes, and a sloped brown suggesting evolutionary regression, it was a study in genetic abnormality, from its crooked teeth to its ungodly long fingernails. Its skin was rough and calloused, like that of a frog, and its flat lips added to its lizard-like appearance. The brown eyes peeking through its tangled hair were fevered and void of intelligence, the lights on, Vale thought, but nobody home. It wore a tattered T-shirt with HOT STUFF printed on the chest, padded yellow football style pants that stopped just below its knees, and a white bicycle helmet on its head - SPECIAL #1 LEMY scrawled across in crayon. A bandana was tied around his neck, a poorly drawn cow skull so much like the human skulls on the counter. The wind blew, and the thing's smell found Vale's nose.

In its hands, it carried a giant chainsaw with a green body and a blood splattered blade. It hung its head in a gesture of contrition and stayed where it was, looking for all the world like a small boy who had committed some terrible deed and knew it would be severely punished.

Lori looked up from the stove and narrowed her eyes. Lyah twisted around in her seat and donned a malevolent smile, her twitching nose reminding Vale of a small, bloodthirsty animal sensing the advent of discord and wanting a front row seat. Liena, her doughy face sheened in sweat, fanned herself with her hand; for the first time, Vale became aware of just how unbearably hot it was in the house.

"Where is she?" Lori demanded.

Lemtard stared down at his feet. Lori turned to face him, bending slightly forward at the waist and hunching her shoulders. "Where. Is. She. Lemtard?" Something akin to fear crept into her voice, and Vale licked his lips. Abby. They were talking about Abby. From Lemtard's stooped posture, he inferred that she escaped. "Did you let her get away?"

When Lemtard didn't reply, Lori stalked forward, the wooden spoon clasped in a white knuckled death grip. Lemtard looked up and squealed in holy terror. The chainsaw fell from his hands, and he ducked to right, bumping into the counter and throwing his thick arms protectively over his face. Lyah watched with a giddy smile and bounced excitedly in her chair as Lori advanced on Lemtard, her finger jabbed in front of her and the spoon quivering like a divining rod sniffing water. The giant had at least two feet and two hundred pounds on her, a kitten to a hulking bulldog, but he cowered regardless, his epic frame shaking with fear. Logan crossed his arms over his broad chest and smirked. "You let her get away, didn't you?"

"_Uhhhgahhh," _Lemtard groaned.

"YOU LET HER GET AWAY!" Lori drew back the spoon and brought it down hard on his forearm with a meaty _thwack_. Lemtard uttered a yelp, and Lori hit him again, then again, the spoon rising and falling, each slap sharper than the last. Lemtard fled at a shamble, Lori hot on his heels, her face contorted in hatred and her bangs stirring with every blow. Lyah laughed with insane abandon, and Logan hissed through his teeth, neither one seeming to fully comprehend that Abby getting away meant they might very well be going to jail. "YOU. STUPID. USELESS. THING.." She rained a hail of slaps down on Lemtard's back. "YOU LET HER GET AWAY! NOW WHAT?"

"_Lahhhh!" _he gurgled. "_Gahhhhh!" _

Lori stopped her assault, panting, her eyes boring through her harried bangs. "He did?" she asked.

Lemtard nodded vigorously; Vale caught a glimpse of its face and was surprised (and disturbed) to see tears glimmering upon its pimply cheeks. Lori fought to catch her breath and seemed to mellow, only to darken once more. She raised the spoon, and Lemtard whined like a kicked dog. "You let her get away," Lori repeated, lower this time, without force. Lyah banged her open palm on the table, and like a shot, Lori spun on her, the spoon thrust out in front like a mighty sword."SHUT UP!" Lori roared, and Lyah's face paled.

She looked at Lemtard again, and the monster flinched. "You're lucky," Lori said. She turned and went to the stove.

Where was he? Vale wondered earlier.

Now he knew.

Hell.

He was in hell.

* * *

"I don't like doin' this," the cop mused, "but there's a lotta things in life you gotta do whether you like 'em or not."

Abby lay on her side in the back seat, her knees drawn to her chest in a sloppy fetal position. Her hands were cuffed behind her back and a burlap sack covered her head. It was hot, itchy, and suffocating, her exhalations humid; tears leaked from her closed eyes and mingled with snot, the taste salty on her lips.

The tires dipped into a pothole and the frame jostled. "Family does for family," the cop said. The car slowed, then turned left; Abby slid and almost fell onto the floor, but braced her shoulder against the seat at the last minute.

How long had they been driving? It felt like forever but couldn't have been more than a few minutes. Long enough at any rate for her sobbing to taper off and for it to fully sink in that she and her baby were going to die.

That sent her into another crying fit; she closed her eyes, bore down on her bottom lip with her teeth, and hitched in silent misery. The car jumped and shuddered, telling her they were on an unpaved road - most likely the one she, Flagg, and Vale broke down on - and the cop sighed. "You just count yourself fortunate, lil' girl, things are gon' work out for you."

What did that mean? She didn't know and was too distraught to puzzle it out. She flexed her wrists, trying to wiggle them out of the cuffs, but they were too tight. She pulled at them, right then left, but they wouldn't budge. Irrational frustration bubbled up in her chest, and she gritted her teeth and worked harder, rotating her wrist in a futile effort to free herself. The metal chafed her flesh, digging into it like the closing teeth of a predator. Her heart thumped and her stomach fluttered; if only she could get one hand out…

"The hell is _he _doin'?" the cop asked, and she froze. The car slowed and came to a rolling stop. Muttering to himself, he put it in park, threw open the door, and got out.

Now was her chance.

"Where you comin' from?" he asked. Abby did not see the figure revealed in the headlights, did not see the cop draw his nightstick.

"I-I was on the road," a familiar voice said.

Abby sat upright, her hands pressing into the small of her back, and inched to the door. "Where you comin' from?" the cop spat. Someone replied, their voice too low for her to hear. She felt for the handle with questing fingertips, and when she brushed it, her heart soared.

"You been at that damn cemetery, huh?" The cop's tone was bitter, dripping with loathing and disdain. He sounded like a man speaking to someone he abhorred and exerting every ounce of self-restraint he had to keep from throttling them. Abby groped for the handle, but couldn't get her fingers around it. Letting out an irritated sigh, she twisted around, backed up to it, and grabbed it. Steeling herself for a fall, she pulled it.

It wouldn't open.

Her heart dropped into her stomach and she pulled again, harder.

Nothing.

Outside, feet scuffled in the dirt, and someone squealed. "I spent three hours pickin' up body parts 'cause of _you!" _

_Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!_

"S-STOP H-HITTING ME!"

_Thunk!_

Soft sobbing followed.

"Go on to the house," the cop said, closer now, and a jolt of electric fright panged through her, "I'm gonna need your help with her."

She let go of the handle and scooted quickly away. The cop climbed in with a grunt, slammed the door, and started driving again. Light fell across the sack and Abby could just make out the profile of a building.

They could be anywhere, but Abby had the sneaking suspicion that she already knew where they were.

A lump of ice formed in her throat and she started to hyperventilate. Horrible images of what would happen to her once they got her inside flickered through her head in a hellish slideshow. Rape, torture, a thousand other things she could see but dared not name. Her stomach clinched, and though she knew it wasn't her baby cowering in fear, she pictured it curled defensively up anyway, shaking like a small animal laid out before a vicious bird of prey. A band of panic squeezed her heart and she started to gasp for air. She couldn't let them hurt her baby. She didn't care about herself...they could do anything they wanted to her...but not to her baby, please God, not her baby.

The car parked and the engine cut, and Abby's lungs ceased functioning. They were here, moments and steps away from the grave. Now was her last chance to get away, to protect her baby. If they got her inside, it was all over - she would never come out again.

She suddenly wished Flagg was here. He would protect them; he wouldn't let anything bad happen to her or their child.

The cop got out and opened the back door, and Abby tensed. She couldn't see, her hands were chained behind her, and she was in the middle of a nowhere night. Her prospects of getting away weren't good, but she was going to try anyway. "Come on," he said. Abby didn't move fast enough for his liking, and flashing, he reached in, grabbed her by her shirt, and dragged her out, the fabric ripping in his hand. She started to yell, but cut off when she landed in the dirt. The cop pulled her to her feet, spun her around, and wrapped his hand around the back of her neck. Through the bag, she could just make out a porch lit by golden light falling from a lamp presumably to one side of the door. "You try anythin' I don't like, and I'm gon' hurt you, okay?"

Before she knew what she was doing, she threw her head back with all her might; her skull connected with the cop's face and he issued a strangled _umph_, his grip on her neck releasing. She wrestled away, staggered to the left, and started running. The light faded and -

Someone tackled her from the left and her feet went out from under her; she went down, the air leaving her lungs in a breathless rush and her head cracking against the ground. Frantic, she kicked her legs and rolled back and forth, trying to get up, but a pair of arms grabbed under her shoulders and yanked her back. "F-F-Fuckin' b-bitch." She drove her elbow back into his stomach, and he doubled over, but did not let go.

"Hold her," the cop snarled. He grabbed her ankles, and between them, they carried her up the stairs like a cord of wood. Abby arched her back, whipped her head from one side to the other, and screamed, mindless in her terror. The man holding her arms stumbled and nearly fell. "Knock it off!" the cop barked. His fist fell on her chest, and hot pain shot into her skull. She went limp and offered no resistance as they carried her into the house. The light dimmed, and the tinny sound of a TV drifted to her like a ghostly whisper, a weatherman droning about highs and lows. They crossed into another room and the light returned. The cop sat her legs down and the other man forced her into a chair. Abby hanged her head, too weak and winded to fight, tears spilling down her face. They uncuffed her hands, then held them against the arms of the chair and wound rope around them.

Someone untied the hood and yanked it off; Abby's eyes stung, then Bobby Jr.'s face appeared in front of her. Recognition flickered in his fevered browns, and his lips turned up in an evil smile. "I-I know y-you," he said then swallowed. Doing his best Flagg, which wasn't very good at all, he said, "G-Get the f-fuck out of my c-car!" He laughed madly (_hehehehehe). _"I'm B-Bobby J-Jr. I-I was named after my u-uncle, not my daddy." He jabbed her in the chest with his pointer finger, and tossing her head back, she wailed mournfully. "I-I told you I had a b-big family, I told you but _yoooou _didn't listen." He tittered and stabbed her with both index fingers now, like a steam driven piston, left, right, left, right, each one sending whorls of pain into the center of her head.

"Get away from her," someone snapped. A tall, thin blonde woman stood at her right side with her arms crossed, the white haired man from the gas station next to her, hands on his plump hips. Bobby Jr. looked up at her but made no move to obey. She darkened and raised one threatening hand, and he scrambled away like a scolded dog.

She was at a kitchen table, Abby saw. A massive, gelatinous woman with a blonde cowlick sat across from her, the bloated fat of her arms straining against the sleeves of a flower mumu as big as a sheet. Another woman, dressed in gray coveralls like Logan's and a red cap, loomed over Abby from the left, her eyes shining with evident lust and her tongue sensually caressing her lower lip. There was no mistaking the black hunger writ across her features, and Abby gulped. She caught a flash of movement from the corner of her eye and turned her head. Someone else was tied to a chair; in the gap between Logan and the woman, Vale's sweaty, black face stared back at her, eyes wide and tempest tossed.

They got him too.

What about Flagg?

Where was Flagg?

"She's pretty," the tall woman remarked with the nonchalance of a woman grocery shopping.

Logan hummed. "When I saw her, I said 'she'll be a good addition.' I fiddled with the engine, sent 'em this way and...you know it goes." He laughed.

Abby looked around in the irrational hope she would see Flagg coming to rescue her, what she saw instead was the stuff of nightmares. Skulls sat on the counter and bones hung from grizzly mobiles. A human trunk, its arms, legs, and head missing and its ragged flesh splattered with blood, hung from a meat hook in the corner, gore dripping into a wide metal pan beneath it. Bones on strings dangled in a doorway like hippie beads, and a skull tacked to the wall kept deathly watch, arm bones spread out on either side of it like wings. A mummified head with a light bulb shoved into its mouth served as a lamp, light emanating from its mouth, nose, eyes, and ears like a disco ball in hell.

The woman leaned over, and Abby cringed. "Don't worry, suge," the woman cooed, "I'm not gonna hurt you." She pressed her hand to Abby's cheek, her palm cool and dry like old leather. Her blue eyes regarded Abby with a soft tenderness that was somehow made all the more surreal by their surroundings. Trembling like a frightened animal, Abby broke down and began to cry.

"Aw, honey," the woman said sympathetically and stroked Abby's hair, "it's alright. We're not gonna hurt you. We just wanna make you part of the family."

The words barely registered in Abby's anguished brain. She could _feel _her baby, as impossible as that might seem, and it was so scared it shook. She opened her lips and tried to speak, to plea for release, but a sob escaped instead. The woman pressed Abby's head to her chest like a loving mother and grazed her nails in a lazy circle over Abby's scalp. "I promise, we're not gonna hurt you. Just relax, alright?"

"Now, Aunt Lori," the cop said, and Lori stood up straight to meet his gaze, "you gotta stop lettin' people get away like that. I can only do so much to help you. If someone who wasn't family came along, you'd all be in jail right now."

Lori's jaw clenched. "It was your cousin, Ladd, he was supposed to bring her here."

"You let him use that damn saw, didn't you?" Ladd asked tersely.

"The saw is family," Lori said in a tone that closed the matter.

The woman on Abby's left leaned over, and Abby moaned. LYAH, read the name above her breast. "You're a cutie," Lyah said and brushed her knuckles across Abby's cheek.

A shadow settled over Ladd's face. "Well, she was screaming' bloody murder and jumpin' up and down in the road."

Lyah dropped to one knee and grabbed Abby's chin, forced her head to turn. The woman's teeth were just as yellow and slanted as Bobby Jr.'s and her breath just as fetid. She nibbled her lower lip and traced the curve of Abby's jaw with her thumb. "I can't wait 'til I put my dick in _you_."

Across the room, Ladd walked away, his head shaking sadly. Lori followed him, her arms crossed. "Someone watch supper," she tossed over her shoulder.

As soon as she was gone, Lyah's grin took on a raw, hateful cast, and Abby was shocked to find herself hoping Lori hurried back. Logan sat next to Liena with a sigh and laced his hands behind his head, and Bobby Jr. slunk around the table as though making sure he were seen and headcannoned. Lyah got to her feet and stared intently down at Abby. Abby swallowed with an audible click. "P-Please let me go," she said brokenly.

"Sorry, hun," Logan said, "no can do."

Lyah went on staring, her shoulders rising and falling with the tide of her evil desire. "You wanna see it, honey?" she asked and licked her lips.

"W-Whip it out," Bobby Jr. chuckled from behind Abby, startling her. "Show her what a _real _man looks like." He giggled and slammed his hands down on Abby's shoulders, then squeezed, making her yelp.

Lyah took a step back and methodically unbuttoned her coveralls like a rapist preparing for the kill, her unwavering gaze never leaving Abby's face. Logan chuckled and Liena looked demurely away, a bright red blush spreading across her flabby cheeks.

Reaching into the flaps of her coveralls, Lyah yanked down her tightie whities, and Abby was too rapt in horror to turn away. "How do you like it?" Lyah huskily asked of her untrimmed vagina. "I'm gonna shove it in you later and get you in the family way, girl."

Abby turned away, and Bobby Jr. grabbed a handful of her hair and wrenched, making her look. "T-Tell him he has a n-nice dick." Abby closed her eyes and tried to turn away, but Bobby Jr. held fast, his jagged fingernails digging into her flesh. "T-Tell him," he said more firmly.

Lyah came forward in a rustle of fabric, and when Abby felt the woman's coarse pubic hair tickling the back of her hand, she issued a low, hitching whimper. Logan cackled insane laughter, and Bobby Jr. chortled like a delighted baby. "Will you put your penis away, please?" Liena asked, scandalized.

"I'm gon' put it somewhere," Lyah said and pulled her underwear up.

They all laughed, three mocking voices shrieking psychotic joy: Logan's belly bouncing, Lyah slapping her knee, Bobby Jr. bouncing from one foot to the other. Madness overwhelmed Abby, and tossing her head back, she let loose a throat shredding squall; her head throbbed and her vision grayed, but she didn't stop…

...Until Bobby Jr. slammed her head into the table and she lost consciousness.

* * *

**I assume by "official" you mean "Drawn and headcanonned by the the sin kids fandom." In which case you're absolutely right. The concept of Gen 3 characters is not a popular one there. Unless I'm misunderstanding LoudRisque's comment, however, I'm looking at No Way Home in the context of the already existing Gen 3 "scene." In that context, I think it counts as much as anything that's already been done. To the best of my knowledge, the characters in No Way Home are by far the most developed and fleshed out Gen 3 characters there are. Trillhouse has one who seems to be a weeaboo with a crush on her uncle Lemy and Pat has a Lemy daughter, but because there isn't a "market" for it, they don't bother with them with them very much. A lot of the sin kids fandom wouldn't give No Way Home a chance just like they wouldn't give Pat and Trill's stuff a chance. I see the OCs from No Way Home (both mine and Raganoxer's) as at least as official as their stuff. Really the only difference is that no one's drawn my OCs Megan and Lucas, but then again, the only people to draw Pat and Trill's Gen 3 characters of Pat and Trill themselves. Gen 3 itself is kind of a void and, I mean, that's pretty much that. No Way Home exists in a state of limbo just like the other Gen 3 things, so I see it as being in the same boat.**


	5. A Family Affair

**Jeff: No, people feel like it's too far from canon and adds unnecessary characters.**

**LoudRisque: No, it's fine, I'm sorry if I misspoke and made you think I was upset. My point was just that there really aren't many Gen 3 characters I could work with and there's not much to the ones that do exist. **

Abby came slowly and groggily awake, sights, sounds, and scents swirling around her in a disorienting vortex of sensation. Her head ached monstrously, her stomach rolled, and her neck muscles blared agony into her addled brain. She smacked her dry lips together and attempted to lift her head, but a lightning bolt of pain struck her frontal lobe and she hissed through her teeth. She went to rub her fevered temple, but her hand wouldn't obey her command. Huh? She pried open her gummy lids, and the light, though low, stung her orbs. She blinked the grit away and took a series of deep, labored breaths.

What happened?

She tried to summon a memory, but the last thing she recalled was watching Flagg disappear down the road...rather, watching Flagg's butt clench and wiggle under his tight blue jeans. She swallowed, throat tacky, and resisted the pressing darkness tinging the edges of her consciousness. Something was wrong. She hurt all over and couldn't move; why were her hands numb? Why did every exhalation make her head pound?

Her mind went instantly to the baby, and cold terror flooded her stomach like icy sludge. Mama bear energy flowed through her and she flopped her head back with a gasp.

When she saw the woman sitting across the table from her, it all came back. The monster with the chainsaw, the cop, Bobby Jr. A scream locked in her throat and alarm detonated inside of her. Her eyes went to the thing beside Lori, and the scream came out as a trembling _ahhhh_. It was tall and lanky with chocolate milk colored hair pulled back in a ponytail, its face covered by a mask of saggy, clay-like skin with wide, gaping eyeholes. Stitches crisscrossed the gruesome vizard, lending it a patchwork appearance. Abby pulled frantically at her bindings but they didn't budge.

Lori looked from the thing to Abby. Seeing her fear, the blonde woman softened her brows. "Don't be scared, honey," she said. She laid her hand on the thing's head and petted it affectionately, as though it were a friendly cat. "It's just Lacy. She wears her mama's face." Lori offered a bemused little chuckle. "She wants to be just like her."

Across the kitchen, Lyah stood at the stove with her back to Abby and languidly stirred the contents of the pot. Liena slipped a fudge covered Twinkie into her mouth and masticated with grotesque grunts of pleasure, and Bobby Jr. sat next to Vale, a napkin tucked into his T-shirt and utensils clutched in his hands. Logan leaned against the counter next to the oven and drink beer from a glass bottle. Three empties marched across the surface like tombstones.

Letting her hand drop from Lacy's head, Lori looked at Abby with motherly concern. "What's your name, honey?"

Vale produced a muffled _umph, _and scowling, Bobby Jr. jabbed his arm with the business end of his fork. "You shut up," the boy said, "n-no one cares about you. Your opinion don't matter."

"Tell me your name, sweetie," Lori said, "honest, I won't bite."

Abby didn't want to tell this bitch shit, but she heard herself speaking her name anyway, the tearful quality of her voice making her wince. "That's a pretty name," Lori said. She preened in satisfiction and sat back. "Logan, go get the others. I wanna see my girls all together."

Finishing his beer, Logan sat it next to the others and went through the archway into the living room. A moment later, he came back with a hand closed around the arm of an emaciated girl with brown hair. Her sallow face was covered in dirt and bruises, one eye swollen shut, and her purple jacket was rumpled and dotted with rips and bloodstains. Abby's stomach knotted at the sight of the girl's vacant stare, like that of a shell shocked refugee; her lips moved but produced no sound...at least no sound that Abby could hear. Logan forced her into a chair beside Abby and went back into the living room without tying her hands. The girl made no move to escape, however; she remained where she was, a trained dog who knew better than to transgress against its masters' wishes. She gazed sightlessly down at her lap and went on mumbling; now, Abby was able to make out words. "_lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil...lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…"_

Logan returned, this time holding the hand of a little Japanese girl about eleven whose knees knocked fearfully together. Her big brown eyes shimmered with tears and she clamped down on her bottom lip with her teeth as if to keep from crying. He lead her to a chair on Abby's other side, sat, then pulled her into his lap, his big, calloused hand not-so-innocently cupping one of her tiny, rosebud breasts through her dress. Lori fluttered her hand to her mouth and looked from prisoner to prisoner with the glowing pride of a parent. "Aren't they precious?"

"They sure are," Logan said huskily. He pressed his lips lecherously to the little girl's neck and kneaded her breast. She hung her head in shame and started to cry.

"Cut it out," Lori ordered, "you know she ain't ready."

Logan kissed the little girl's jaw, his lips leaving slimy trails on her flesh. "Soon."

"Once she gets her first visit from Aunt Flo," Lori said. She looked at Abby and took a deep breath, not seeing or ignoring the shock in her eyes. "Our family's been intermarryin' a long time," she said, "that's how we preserve our genes." She laid her hand once more on Lacy's head, as though the girl were a shining example of genetic superiority. "After a while, it got to be too much. We need to...water things down a little." She faltered as if searching her limited vocabulary for words to express herself with; even in her flustered state, however, Abby knew exactly what the woman was getting at.

Lori uttered a nervous laugh and brushed her bangs from her eyes. "That's where you, Lyra, and Bed come in." She nodded to the brown haired girl, Lyra, then to the Japanese girl, Bed. Strange name. Made no sense whatsoever. Probably someone's idea of a lame joke. "We gotta keep makin' babies. Fifty plus just ain't enough; we need more. We're related to all of Loudville, then one day, we're gonna spread out even more. We're going to take over and everything's gonna be done our way. If you don't like it, you can get the hell out." She laughed again, and Abby gaped, appalled. "That comes later, though." She pushed to her feet and looked down her nose at the three terrified girls. She locked eyes with Abby and smiled cordially. "You picked a very special night to come see us. Tonight, Loli's gon' lose her virginity to her Pa."

"Peace be upon him," everyone muttered like Islamic cultists.

Revulsion rose in Abby's throat.

Lori looked at Bobby Jr. "Go get your daddy," she ordered.

Grinning ear-to-ear like a boy egar for the praise helping his mother would bring him, Bobby Jr. threw down his fork and knife, plucked the napkin from his shirt, and pushed away from the table. At the stove, Lyah donned a pink mit, opened the oven, and reached in, grabbing a circular baking pan laden with cornbread. She sat it on the counter, pulled out a knife to cut it with, and began to carve it. Logan, having left Bed alone, took the lid off the pot, dipped the wooden spoon in, then brought it to his lips. Whatever it was, it was red and meaty. "That's really good, Lyah," he commented.

Lyah froze, and a flicker of trepidation crossed Logan's face - he was a man who knew he's committed a grave mistake. "I mean -"

The woman spun on him and held up the knife; it shook in her hand and offended tears welled in her eyes. Logan paled and held his hands up, palms out, in a mollifying gesture."How many times I gotta tell you," Lyah said, her voice breaking with emotion, "my name's not Lyah...my name's Lyle."

Logan's eyes darted from her face to the knife. "I-I'm sorry, Lyle, I-I didn't mean nothin' by it."

Next to Abby, Lyra sobbed softly, and, perhaps it was her latent maternal instincts, Abby wanted to reach out and take the girl into her arms.

Lori twisted around in her chair and glared. "Will you boys cut it out? No fightin' in the kitchen."

For a moment, Lyah didn't move...then she turned back to the cornbread and began cutting it again, mumbling curses under her breath. Logan slunk away with his tail between his legs and stood by the back door. A moment later, Bobby Jr. came in, and when Abby saw who was with him, her blood turned to ice water. The monster...the one who chased her with a chainsaw. It was even uglier in the light: Greasy bangs hung in its Neanderthal face, its jagged yellow teeth crowded its too small mouth, and bumps covered its face.

Even worse was the _other _thing.

Between them, Lemtard and Bobby Jr. carried a throne-like chair made of bones, each of its two arms ending in a tiny skull. In it was a mummified body clad in a dusty burial suit, its flesh tanned and dried and its head bald save for a white cowlick. Its gaping eye sockets festered with darkness and its mouth, frozen in a silent exclamation, was ringed with blood. Its penis jutted out from a hole in its pants, rigid, brown, and withered in death.

Abby's heart stopped dead and her lungs constricted. They brought the chair to the head of the table and sat it down with careful reverence, Lemtard bending over to kiss the top of the corpse's head. Lori turned and regarded it with wide eyed adoration, a wistful smile playing across her thin lips. "There he is," she said dreamily. "Kids, pay your respects to your father."

Bobby Jr. knelt, leaned over, and to Abby's unending disgust, wrapped his lips around the cadaver's rod. He pulled back with a repellent slurp and looked up at it. "H-Hi, Daddy."

Coming over from the door, Logan got down on one knee, bent, and flicked his tongue over the tip. "Hi, Daddy."

Setting the knife aside, Lyah fell in line behind Logan, and when he moved, she took his place, taking her father's dead dick deep into her mouth and bobbing her head slowly. "Evenin', Daddy," she said.

"Lemtard," Lori said, "go pay your tribute to your daddy."

The giant stood shyly by the sink, its head down and its hair covering its repugnant visage. Abby watched, transfixed, as it came forward, its huge feet scraping the linoleum. Its nails were yellow and jagged and its arms as big around as logs, a network of pulsing blue veins crisscrossing its dirty flesh. Its arms dangled limply at its sides, longer than they should have been, and its hunched shoulders put Abby in mind of a primate, or a caveman two steps down the evolutionary ladder from human. How many generations of inbreeding did it take to produce _this? _How many clandestine trysts between brother and sister, son and mother, father and daughter? How long had this family been here, growing like a tumor in a malformed body? How many other travellers had they taken from the road?

Those thoughts and others battered Abby's fraying mind as Lemtard sank to its knees. She jerked a glance at Vale, who stared at the proceedings with a look of pained disgust. Silvery tears slid down Lyra's cheeks and her muttered prayers came faster, more abjectly, going from pleas to outright begging.

Lemtard took its father into its mouth and went down with evident relish. It pulled back, licked the withered tip, then got to its feet. Lori turned to Lacy and patted her leg. "Go see your pa."

The girl gazed at the table, her brown eyes flat and empty. She bit pieces of skin from her bottom lip and swallowed; rich red blood dribbled down the lips and chin of her mask and dropped like rain onto the front of her shirt - it was red and white with a big 1 on the front that had been crossed out by magic marker and replaced by a number 2. A ribbon of drool coursed down the corner of her mouth, and she sucked it in as she got stiffly to her feet. Her movements were slow, robotic, and Abby couldn't help wondering if she was born broken, or broken by the carnival of horrors in which she was incubated.

Getting to her knees, Lacy went down with all the enthusiasm of a catatonia patient, then returned to her seat.

Looking around to make sure everyone present had properly shown their respects, Lori got up, walked over in a seductive swish of hips, and knelt. She curled her fingers lovingly around the corpse's dick and stroked it while staring up into its gaping eyes. "Hi, Lincy," she said. She bent, molded her lips to its head, then pushed down, jacking faster now. She pumped up and down, up and down, her head flying back and forth and muffled sounds of wretched pleasure emanating from her throat. Abby turned away, and Vale squeezed his eyes closed to block out the horrid sight.

With a plop, Lori spat him out and licked flecks of dead skin from her lips. "There's never been a man like him," she said, "and there never will be again. He was perfect in every way. All the girls went with they daddy and the boys too. His dick was the biggest, his heart the strongest - he was a god among men and we worship him to this day."

"Log," Bobby Jr. said.

Lyah grinned. "Log."

"Log," Logan agreed.

Liena nodded. "Log."

Lori yanked the dick off and Abby's gorge rose. She got to her feet and held it out to Liena, who swirled her tongue around it, then nipped it between her teeth. Lori laughed merrily, turned, and replaced it. "Your daddy loved that." She looked at Abby and smiled. "This thing here created over fifty children. He got every woman he ever met pregnant, some of 'em three or four times. Let's see, there's…"

Here she launched into a long list of names that made Abby dizzy. God, that many?

"Loan  
Liena  
Lyra  
Liby  
Lacy  
Lupa  
Lemy  
Leia  
Lizy  
Lulu

Lari

Ladd

Loopoo

Rinn

Lyle

Lani

Lops

Lynn III

Racheal

Lupe

Lester

Ligala

Toby  
Rochelle  
Reina  
Bobby Jr  
Logan  
Lila  
Lina  
Marla  
Gloom  
Laika  
Vikki  
Lillith  
Sonette  
Panther  
Terry  
Rosemary  
Samantha

Loli

Darna

Bethany

Brianna

Naomi

Mano."

She paused, creased her brow contemplatively, and pursed her lips. "I'm sure there's some I'm forgettin'. Then there's the ones we adopted. Bed...Lyra. Lyra's a replacement. First Lyra drowned in the pond out back when she was two." She looked at Logan. "What was that lesbian girl we took in a few years back?"

"Allie," the man said distastefully.

Lori nodded in remembrance. "She wouldn't let none of the men touch her. Kicked up a mighty big fuss so we had to get rid of her."

"She tasted funny," Liena said with a grimace.

"All them homos do," Logan said.

Standing in front of the stove now like a wild-eyed street preacher in a sandwich board foretelling doom and judgement, Lori fixed Lincoln with an unhealthy look of fanatical devotion. "Lincoln wanted better," she rambled, "he was tired of toiling in anonymity, of being relegated to mediocrity. He set out to carve a niche for himself, a place where he could receive the love, attention, and veneration he so rightfully deserved. He built this family with his bare hands and his big, beautiful, thick, perfect, amazing Log. He is the reason we are here, he is the center of our universe and of our being. He is the captain of this ship, the sun in our darkness, our lord and our savior. We will lay down our lives for his glory, and we will fight to the death to defend his honor."

A starry look crept into her eyes and she drew a nostalgic sigh. "None of you boys will ever be half the man he was." She looked at Lemtard, who regarded its feet with a chastized expression, as though it already knew it fell short of Lincoln's glory. "Even if you were the same, He would be better. He is always bigger, smarter, faster, stronger, kinder. You will _never _amount to him. Never. You will try. You will fuck everything that walks just like he did, you will have twice as many children, but Lincoln will always be above you."

She hesitated, looked at the stove, then to Logan. "Get the others. Supper's ready." To Lemtard and the others. "Wash up, now."

While Logan went to fetch the others - whoever they might be - Lori took the lid off the pot, sat it aside, and grabbed an armful of bowls from a cabinet. Lyah sat at the table and Lemtard disappeared through the bone-bead doorway, only to remerge seconds later with his chainsaw. He sat on Bed's left, and the little girl scooted closer to Abby. Fear wafted from her in dark waves, and Abby's heart broke. "Sweetie, it's okay" she croaked, the lie clumsy and cumbersome in her mouth. Bed flicked her eyes to Abby, then quickly away like a timid minnow in a bowl. Abby opened her mouth to say more, but trailed off when a woman walked in from the living room.

Seven feet tall with a pale face and black hair covering her eyes, she wore a long black dress that put Abby in mind of Morticia Addams, a long cape, and a necklace made of twine and bones. The hem of her dress covered her feet and gave her the illusion of floating, and when she sat next to Lyah, she still towered over everyone else.

God, were all of them messed up?

Another woman entered, clad in a pale pink dress, her rust red hair pulled back in a pragmatic ponytail. Her face was stony and her lips turned down in a sneer. She, too, was tall, and solidly built, her arms toned and muscular and her shoulders broad. If Lyah was a man who looked like a woman, she was a woman who looked like a man. She started to sit, but Lori stopped her. "Laika, hold on, I want you to do somethin', okay?"

"What?" Laika grumbled in a thick Russian accent.

Lori looked at Vale, and when she spoke, Abby's heart stopped. "Take that nigger out to the shed. We don't need him."

The Russian glared at Vale. "You want me to kill?"

"Yes."

"No!" Abby blurted.

Laika blew a puff of air that stirred her bangs. "Alright. Will kill black man." She came around the end of the table, and Vale screamed against his muzzle.

"Don't, God, please!" Abby screamed.

"You hush up, Listeria," Lori said.

Grabbing Vale by the back of the neck, Laika slammed his face against the table and untied his wrists one handed. The stark terror in his eyes pushed her over the edge and she started to cry. "Don't kill him, please," she moaned.

Laika dragged Vale to his feet and manhandled him to the back door. Abby yanked at her bonds, determined to break out and help him, and was it her imagination, or did she feel give? The Russian leaned over and turned the knob, and Vale pushed back against her. Snarling, she bashed his face into the doorframe, and he went limp. Abby screamed, and Laika wrestled Vale out into the night, the door slamming closed behind them with grim finality. In that instant, Abby knew she would never see her friend again...and that she was utterly alone in the world.

Weeping disconsolately, she pulled at the restraints.

"Listeria," Lori said in a reprimanding tone, "honey, you -"

"That's not my name!" Abby screamed. "It's a disease!"

Lori's face darkened, and for the first time that night, Abby saw the demon she knew lurked within. Bending slightly forward at the waist, eyes burning like hellfire, she roared, "WE'RE RUNNIN' OUT OF L NAMES!" Lemtard, sitting at his father's right hand, cringed, and one corner of Lyah's mouth turned up in a knowing smirk. "_You _try comin' up with some. I'm sick of it. Why you think I named her Bed?"

Visions of the fate that awaited Vale ran through Abby's head, and she let out a shriek of rage, frustration, and hopelessness.

If Flagg was here, he'd make them let her go. He'd save Vale, her, and their baby and take them away.

But he wasn't.

Because he was probably dead.

Her scream turned to a kneading wail. She was trapped and there was absolutely nothing she could do. She liked to think she was strong, but she was not; she was full of talk and empty bluster and always had been. She projected strength and self-assurance, but inside she was weak and vulnerable. Vale was going to die, she was going to die, and her baby was going to die. A woman has one purpose in this world and that is to bare and nurture life. She failed, because the life God entrusted her with would never come to pass and it was her fault. She would never get to hold her baby, never pinch its chubby little feet, never get to hear it giggle or see it smile or hear it call her Mommy. All the promise and potential of her child's life would end right here, in a dirty, stuffy kitchen in the deep back woods of Texas.

Because she was weak.

I'm sorry, she thought to her baby, Mommy's so sorry.

Her tears came harder, faster, and more bitter.

And Bed, too, began to cry.


	6. A Window in Hell

**Lyrics to **_**Raspberry Beret **_**by Prince (1985)**

Vale hung suspended upside down from a wooden framework in a tumbledown barn, his chest bare and the blood rushing to his head. Velcro straps held his feet in place and his fingertips grazed the dirt floor. Missing persons flyers papered the rotting wood walls, each one depicting, in stark black and white, the face of someone, he assumed, the Louds had killed. A man in a baseball cap emblazoned with LEO (law enforcement officer?); another with glasses and blue hair; another still with a Shemp Howard hairdo and peach fuzz on his upper lip; an insufferably smug looking cat. A line of meat hooks dangled from the ceiling, each one crusted with dried blood, and metal drums filled with corrosive acid sat in a V-formation like an arrow pointing directly at him. Laika stood at a dusty workbench pushed flush with the far wall, her back to him. A flexible gooseneck lamp shone cold LED light across its surface, revealing an array of butcher's tools: Knives, meat cleavers, hammers, handsaws, drills, and a gleaming chrome meat grinder.

The woman bent, pulled a deep metal drip pan from beneath the table, and hefted it over. She sat it under him and stared down into his face. Vertigo came over him and the blood flowing to his head made him sick to his stomach. "You are lucky am not sick like family," she said, "I won't torture, only kill."

Comforting.

She turned and went back to the table, and Vale struggled to keep his composure. This was it. In just a few minutes, she would come back, slit his throat, and wait for him to bleed to death. A knot formed in his stomach and his heart beat morosely against his ribs. There was no escape, no deiverence, only the coming night.

"Have special eighties CD," Laika said, "will cover sounds of death."

Personally, he would have picked something else to die to.

Licking his lips, he favored the straps circling his feet. If he could reach them, he could free himself. That would require doing a sit up, and though he was not overweight, he lacked the abdominal strength required to pull himself up. He tried now, as if to prove to himself that he couldn't, and his stomach muscles burned like heated coils. He gritted his teeth and let out a pent up breath.

It was impossible.

Laika sat a radio on the table, popped the lid, and sat a CD in the compartment. She snapped the door closed and pushed a button, and bouncy eighties pop filtered from the speaker, the resonant dissonance of happy sounds in a hellish slaughterhouse so eerie that Vale's skin crawled.

_I was working part time in a five-and-dime_

_My boss was Mr. McGee_

_He told me several times that he didn't like my kind_

_'Cause I was a bit too leisurely _

She took a leather apron stained with gore down from a hook and slipped it over her head. Vale studied the straps, his mind working. So close, but so far away. He _had _to get them off...Abby needed him. If he gave up like a bitch and let that white cunt kill him, everything that happened to Abby afterwards would be _his _fault...all the rape, beatings, abuse, and god knows what else, all on him because he didn't even try to help.

_Seems that I was busy doing something close to nothing_

_But different than the day before_

_That's when I saw her, ooh, I saw her_

_She walked in through the out door, out door_

Laika hummed along to the music as she picked each instrument up in turn, judging its merits and demerits before putting it back and moving onto the next. Vale balled his fists, bore down on his teeth, and began to gradually rock himself back and forth like a child on a swing. Laika held up a wickedly sharp knife and the light glinted off its serrated blade. "This one good for tearing veins," she mused to herself, then held up another. "But this one too."

Vale was swinging faster now, gaining momentum. The frame creaked and he winced, expecting Laika to hear, but the music concealed it. His plan was to get as much speed as possible, do a crunch on the backswing, and rip the straps off as quickly as he could. He didn't know if that was feisible for not, but he was going to try anyway; it was better than placidly giving himself and Abby to these peckerwood motherfuckers.

_She wore a_

_Raspberry beret_

_The kind you find in a second hand store_

_Raspberry beret_

_And if it was warm she wouldn't wear much more_

_Raspberry beret_

_I think I love her_

The Russian sat both knives down, picked up another, and hummed her indecision like a persnickety woman comparing apples in the produce section. Vale's midsection blazed and his legs were starting to cramp, but he ignored them; he was focused entirely on the task at hand, on getting loose and getting away. The minor discomfort would be worth it, and so, so, so much better than dying at Laika's hands.

When he had enough push, he ground his teeth and curled like doing a sit up. Burning agony filled his stomach and a groan escaped through his teeth; blood crashed against his temples and his skull swelled with pain. He brought his arms up and reached for the straps, but fell back, wagging back and forth like a pendulum on speed.

At the workbench, Laika picked up a meat cleaver and considered it with a hum, her dry lips scrunching. "Should be sharp or dull?" she asked herself. "Sharp make death quick, dull make more work."

Vale's stomach quivered like a plate of jelly and every muscle in his body violently seized, but taking a deep breath, he clinched, bared his teeth, and steeled himself. He'd have to quick and precise, two things he wasn't sure he was capable of.

God, please, he prayed, let me do this right.

He tensed, then curled again, swung his arms up, and went for the strap around his left ankle in one fluid motion. Velcro brushed his fingertips, and his heart rocketed into his throat. He grabbed the flap and yanked; with a tearing sound, it came apart and he dangled from one foot, his ankle twisting and agony shooting up his leg. He moaned, then the bracket holding his other foot gave way, spilling him to the ground in a heap.

For a moment he lay there, too dazed by his own triumph to move, then adrenaline surged through him and he got unsteadily to his feet. Laika, none the wiser, looked between two different knives. Going after her was not a conscious decision - his body simply carried him forth, driven by mindless primal instinct and the will to survive. Laika was a threat and if he didn't stop her, she would come for him.

An ax with a splintered wood handle leaned wearily against the wall, its dull blade glinting in the light. Vale watched himself grab it, unthinking, unfeeling, numb and operating on animal fear alone. He lifted it over his shoulder like a batter on the mound, the world slowing to a crawl, the only sound the mad beating of his own heart and the only thought in his mind Abby, chained to a chair in a den of wolves and at the mercy of monsters.

_Built like she was_

_She had the nerve to ask me_

_If I planned to do her any harm_

_So, look here_

_I put her on the back of my bike_

_And we went riding_

_Down by old man Johnson's farm_

Laika turned just as he brought it down, a scream of animal fury erupting from his throat. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open in surprise, then the blade smashed into the center of her face. A jarring vibration ran up his arms and Laika fell back against the edge of the workbench, wet gurgles tearing from her blood-filled throat. Some splattered Vale's cheeks and stung his eyes, but he didn't notice and wouldn't have cared if he had. He wrenched the ax free, panting now, crackling with power like 50,000 volts; broken bones and twisted bits of cartilage poked through the red mess that was once Laika's face, her punctured eyes mixing with blood and sliding down her paling cheeks.

In his twenty-three years of life, Vale had never hit someone with an ax, and didn't know what to expect. He anticipated her toppling to one side and falling still, or maybe her dropping to her knees and trying to hold her head together with trembling hands. He did not, however, think she would let out a phlegmy battle cry and charge him. Arms outstretched, fingers grasping, Laika threw herself at him like a cemetery nightmare; she hit him and the ax flew from Vale's hands, landing in the dirt with a _pufft. _They fell back in a tangle of limbs, Laika on top, her fingers blindly clawing in search of his throat. Blood oozed from the gaping crater in her face and dripped onto Vale like fat droplets of rain. He stared up at her in open-mouthed shock, then wheezed when her grasp closed viciously around his neck. His paralysis broke, and he raked his nails frenziedly across the backs of her hands. She redoubled her grip and dug her thumbs into his larynx, cutting off his air supply. His eyes strained in their sockets and darkness edged the borders of his consciousness. Panic consumed him, and he tried to toss her off, but she braced her knees on either side of his hips, clinging to him like an overgrown monkey to the side of a building. "I die," she spat lowly, "you die too."

His ear were ringing and warmth spread through his dying brain. He tried one last time to roll, but

Laika held fast. His gaze went to the yawning slit down the center of her face, and acting on reflex, he jammed the fingers of both hands into it and pulled, prying her skull apart like a man might a stubborn crab at Red Lobster. Her arms locked and she shook, sounds of agony blasting from her mouth, and giving it everything he had, Vale yanked. Laika's face opened up with a sickening crack, and her brain dropped onto Vale's face with a wet plop. She jerked, then fell limp against him, dead.

Crying out in revulsion, Vale whipped his head to one side, and the organ landed in the dirt. He heaved her off of him, got to his feet, and staggered away. At the door, he slapped one hand against the frame and caught his breath. He looked around for his shirt, intending to wipe the blood (and, oh God, whatever else) from his face, but landed on a long wooden crate instead. Shoved against one wall and partially covered by a green tarp, it wouldn't have drawn his attention if what looked like the barrel of a gun hadn't been jutting over the edge. He pushed away, went to it, and drew the tarp back.

A veritable arsenal lay before him like Thanksgiving dinner. Rifles, shotguns, pistols, Uzis, and AK-47's all lumped together like slimy snakes in a subterranean den. Vale scanned the offering with awe and trepidation. Guns, and what they were capable of, had always unsettled him, and the few times he'd seen one in person, black, slick with grease, and sinister, his heartbeat quickened apprehensively.

Even so, he reached in and withdrew an M4 carbine with an extended magazine. It was oily and warm in his hands, like an eel, and lead filled his stomach. He looked up at Laika, who lay face down in the dirt, and licked his lips. He turned the rifle over and examined it from every angle, trying to figure out how to even work the damn thing. He found the safety just above the trigger guard and ficked it off, then gripped the magazine and yanked it out. The light flickered over a wicked looking brass cartridge terminating in a pointed round.

Vale's throat went dry and his hands began to shake.

He knew what he had to do.

Slamming the magazine back in, he went out into the night.

* * *

The girl of the hour sat primly across from Abby, her big brown eyes just as dull as Lemtard's and her teeth even more crooked. Her forehead was sloped in that distinctive Loud way and butterfly clips held her white hair in jaunty pigtails that seemed to mock Abby's anguish. Clad in an oversized sweater, black knee socks with a pink and purple zigzag pattern, and nothing else, Loli appeared far younger than her eighteen years. She stared straight ahead with an inscrutable smile upon her glossy pink lips and a faraway gaze; a ribbon of drool dribbled from her chin and onto her empty plate, and her scent - dirty and unwashed woman - pinched the back of Abby's nose. She tried to breath through her mouth, but the gag Logan tied around her head blocked her airways, so she was forced to inhale through her nose.

Not that she cared; she was numb to it all, her pink rimmed eyes shimmered with unshed tears and her throat was raw from screaming. Having Vale taken away and being left alone with _them _was bad, but worse was when Loli came in wearing cracked and bent sunglasses.

Flagg's sunglasses.

The realization that he was truly dead hit her and she broke down crying, her lament rising until she shrieked with rage, hatred, bereavement, insanity, and a thousand other emotions. She pulled at the rope lashing her hands to the chair, tossed her head from side to side, and screamed at the top of her lungs, giving voice to the gnashing pain within. She was so excited to tell him about the baby, was looking forward to his eyes lighting up and his strong arms closing around her in a loving embrace. They were going to be a family...they were going to take road trips and go to amusement parks, take lots of pictures and grow old together and...and _they _took it away from her.

Deep inside of her, resentment stirred like the cold, windswept ashes of a dead fire, and she sniffled. If she made it out of this alive - a pretty big if - her baby would never know its father. It would never be cradled safe in his arms, never squeal laughter as he gave it piggyback rides through the backyard, never snuggle up to him and drift peacefully off to sleep as he read it bedtime stories.

The water in her eyes brimmed over and streaked down her face.

At the stove, Lori stirred the contents of the pot, tapped the spoon on the rim, and turned. Lyah, now with a red apron over her coveralls (KISS THE COOK in white) slathered butter on each piece of cornbread and paused to take swigs from a bottle of beer. Logan sat with Bed in his lap and his fingers laced across her stomach, Bobby Jr. sat in the seat recently vacated by Vale, and Lemtard sat at his dead father's right hand, rocking back and forth in his chair and giggling to himself as if at a joke only he could understand. Lucy - that was the comically tall woman's name - favored Abby with a blank expression, her lips a tight white slash across her sallow face. Abby couldn't see her eyes, but she could feel them; hot, heavy, and appraising, as though she were sizing her up and finding her deficient. Beside her, Lacy dumbly licked her lips..._and _the lips of her gruesome mask.

Setting the spoon aside, Lori came up behind Loli and laid her hands on the girl's slender shoulders. Loli looked up at her and gave a big, stupid grin. Lori smiled at her then looked around the table. "Supper's ready, y'all, but before we get started, we got a very special event. Tonight, Loli's gon' become a woman. She's gon' follow in all our footsteps and take her daddy into herself."

"Log," everyone said in unison.

A pleased look settled upon Lori's features. "Riding the Log is a family tradition that we've all done and all liked...some of us more than others." She looked at Logan, who smirked and ducked his head to hide the blush coloring his cheeks.

Abby's sight was drawn magnetically to the corpse at the head of the table; a spider scurried across its cheek and disappeared into one socket.

"It started when I was seventeen," she continued. "Lincoln was eleven and the most _beautiful _boy I'd ever seen." She took her hands away from Loli's shoulders and walked slowly around the table, her fingers trailing along the surface. "I was torn for a long time about my feelings. He was my baby brother and it was wrong to want him the way I did." She stood behind the corpse now, her fingers brushing through the sparse white hair covering its skull. Lyra hugged herself tightly and shook; Bed squirmed uncomfortably in Logan's lap, as if trying to get away from something prodding her. ""Finally, one night, I gave in," Lori said. "I went in his room and had sex with him. All my sisters followed suit, and so, too, did every other woman." She kissed the top of Lincoln's head and swished back to Loli. "Now it's your turn, suge."

She cupped Loli's cheek in her hand, and Loli preened, as though having sex with her father's dead body were a great honor. "Every girl belongs to Lincoln," Lori explained patiently to her niece, "they might wander here 'n there, but they always come back to they daddy. We wouldn't have it any other way. Why be different when you can be the same?"

"Same," everyone responded in a low, monotonous chant.

"We do things a certain way here," she continued, looking directly at Abby, "and it's good enough for us. A lotta family don't like it and they moved on. Well, if you ask me, they're no family at all. We talk to them, we smile at them, but once they chose to go outside of us, they stopped bein' real family. _We _are the real Louds, the true heirs to Lincoln's legacy. Us. Not them. _Us_." She swept her arm out to indicate the gathering. A sagging puddle of flesh; a girl who wanted to be her mother; a girl who believed she was a man, and whom everyone else humored and encouraged; a grinning loon named after his uncle, _not _his daddy; a genetic freak with a chainsaw sitting in his lap like a Bond villain's hairless cat; a fat pedophile leering at the back of a little Asian girl's head and grinding his erection into her butt; a seven foot tall goth.

"God said in the Bible, John 5:16, that He would send His son back, sailing with the rock, like Independence Day. Well, let me tell you, the rock came back in Lincoln. He was the return of the Son of His Father and he filled us will his holy seed. We're the chosen ones, y'all, and we was mighty blessed to have Lincoln."

Everyone nodded solemnly, like a congregation to the infallible word of its head. A deranged gleam crept into her eyes and her smile took on a crazed cast, surprisingly Abby. She thought Lori the sanest member of the family, but if anything, she was the most disturbed. "We gotta keep up what Lincoln built. We gotta keep going forward and expandin'. If we do, one day, He'll come back to us." She glanced from face to face. "He'll make manifested in one of your children, or your children's children. He's a'comin', mark my words, he might even be inside one of you now."

Abby thought of her baby and shivered.

Turning to Loli once more, Lori asked, "Are you ready, hun?"

The girl nodded eagerly, her pigtails rustling. Lori took a side back and regarded her with the hazy smile of a mother seeing her daughter off to prom. "Stand up."

Lemtard, Logan, Bobby Jr., and Lyah all leered at their sister -cousin like dogs as she got to her feet, their eyes caressing her naked legs. Lyra, head hung, squeezed her eyes closed in dread anticipation of what was next, and Bed wiggled fruitlessly to escape Logan's lap. "You're just makin' me harder, little girl," Logan said in a husky whisper and pulled her tight against him. Lori sat in Loli's chair, lifted the hem of the white haired moron's sweater, and dragged her white panties down her shapely legs, bunching fabric scraping warm, creamy skin. She let them drop around Loli's ankles, then got up and took her hand. Loli allowed herself to be lead to her waiting father, his skeletal grimace bellicose and depraved in the light of the overhead lamp.

Leaning to the side, Lyah snatched her sister-cousin's underwear from the floor with a lewd smile, held them to her nose, and sniffed deeply.

"I-I-I wanna smell t-too," Bobby Jr. said indignantly.

Lyah tilted her head back, face covered by dingy white, and thrust her hips lavisciously back and forth.

Bobby Jr. reached over the table. "I-It's _my _turn now, Lyle," he whined.

Lifting her arm, Lyah held up her middle finger, and Bobby Jr.'s face screwed up as though he were going to cry. "A-Aunt Lori…"

The woman ignored him as she guided Loli to her destiny.

Sighing, Lyah grabbed the panties and threw them at her brother with a sneer. "There, you little twerp."

A big, dumb smile spread across Bobby Jr.'s face.

Abby swallowed thickly and rolled her hands, the rope pressing hard into her wrist bone. The right was looser than before, and if she worked it, she could get out. She couldn't think of what would come after, _wouldn't_, because if she did, she would freeze. The chances of getting away were virtually nil, but if she stayed here, they were nil full stop. So concentrating entirely on flexing her hands, ignoring the rope chafing her flesh raw, Abby worked with single-minded determination. She'd worry about later when she got there..._if _she got there.

Kneeling next to Lincoln, Lori wrapped her hand around his mummified dick. "C'mon, hun," she said and shook the appendage enticingly.

Loli bit her bottom lip apprehensively and came hesitantly forward like a virgin bride to her wedding bed. Abby flexed her wrists faster, heart crashing a frenetic tempo and her guts twisting and knotting.

Laying her hands on her father's shoulders, Loli settled onto his lap, Lori bringing the tip to Loli's opening with a breathy, "Push down, sweetie." Everyone watched, enraptured, like ancient Jews basking in the presence of Christ. A revenant hush fell over the table, and in that moment it became a church...a church in which the holy spirit dwelt in the form of a mummy with white hair. Loli sank onto the Log like her brothers, sisters, aunts, cousins, nephews, and nieces before her, and a gasp squeezed from her throat. Lori stood up and stepped back, her arms crossing proudly over her chest. Abby tugged and flexed, tugged and flexed, the rope coming looser. She tried to pull her hand out, but it wouldn't come.

Next to Abby, Lyra sobbed openly, and Bobby Jr. favored her with a devilish grin. "D-Don't w-worry, s-sis, y-you can ride r-rocket later on."

That triggered something deep inside the girl, and throwing her head back, she shrieked as loud as she could. Lori's lips fell into a deadly frown, and Lyah narrowed her eyes. Tossing her head crazily from side to side, her hands tearing madly at her hair, she wailed, all of her pain, misery, and suffering coming to the surface and flooding the world. Skulls watched indifferently, and demonic shadows danced across the wall as if to the beautiful music she made.

Lori's mask of motherly affection slipped, revealing the monster beneath: Features distorting, lips pulling back from her teeth and her eyes narrowing to reptilian slits. "Shut that bitch up," she hissed. Bobby scrambled to his feet, bent over Lyra, and grabbed a handful of her hair, yanking her head back. He jammed the panties into her face, grinding them, and giggled merrily.

"L-Let me d-dry them tears," he laughed. Lyra thrashed back and forth, her screams muffled and her hooked fingers clawing desperately at his face but coming up short. Bed started to sob and Logan roared with sadistic laughter. Bobby Jr. glanced up at him, then at Lyra. "Hush, little b-baby, d-don't say a word…"

Loli bounced up and down on her father's rod, her face flushed and a look of perfect bliss upon her visage. Abby pulled harder, twisting, tearing skin, blood sluicing down her fingers and greasing her skin. Tears flowed from her leaking eyes and hysteria threatened to overcome her; a great weight crushed her chest and she could barely breathe. It was hot, too hot, and the walls were closing in, looming, pushing, towering, getting closer and closer, the air less and less. Pain snaked up her arms but she didn't care, didn't care about anything but getting away from this awful fucking place.

Folding her arms in a gesture of smug satisfaction, Lori leaned back against the stove and smirked at Loli: The girl was nearing her peak, trembling exhalations puffing from her lips and breathy moans of, "Daddy," quavering from her throat. She hugged the corpse, lifted her hips, then came down hard, the agonizing kiss of his tip battering her cervix knocking a moan from her saliva slathered mouth.

Abby's hand was almost free; the skin was raw, pink, and bloody, ragged tatters of flesh peeling off onto the rope. She bore down on her teeth and pulled her hand back; the rope slipped over her knuckles and she was free. She stared dazedly down at her seeping wound, unable to process what she was seeing through her traumatized brain. Bobby Jr. pushed the panties deeper into Lyra's face and laughed, _he he he he he_. Lacy chewed her mother's lips; Liena looked mournfully down at her plate, waiting for it to be filled; Lucy gazed at Loli; Logan rubbed one of Bed's breasts through her dress and licked the slope of her neck; Lyah grinned; Lemtard drooled, one hand absently stroking the chainsaw blade. Lyra arched her back, and Bobby Jr. swung one leg over her, shifting into her lap and holding the underwear over her mouth and nose. "You want the r-r-rocket? I'll g-g-give you the r-r-r-ocket."

He reached one hand down and fumbled at his belt. Behind him, Loli's movements quickened as she reached her climax. "D-D-Daddy~"

When the window over the kitchen sink exploded in a shower of glass, Abby started. Bullets pelted Lincoln's head and arm, kicking up puffs of cemetery dust, and one tore out Loli's throat in a mist of blood. A hail of gunfire hit Lori in the chest, and she jerked, spun, and slumped over the stove before falling, the pot clattering to the floor and spilling thick, meaty chili across the tiles. "The food!" Liena screamed. A round took her high in right temple and the chair collapsed under her spasming weight. Lemtard dropped out of his chair and held his arms protectively over his head; Logan shoved Bed aside and dove under the table, crying out when a round hit him in the ass. A furious rain of bullets dug into the cabinets, the stove, the wall, glass shattering, metal pinging, wood cracking. One hit Bobby Jr. in the shoulder and, yelping like a trod upon cat, he toppled off of Lyra and curled up on the floor. Lyah fell to one side, maybe wounded and maybe not, and Abby ducked her head, heart slamming so hard it hurt, and closed her eyes, waiting for the maelstrom to stop.

Lincoln's magical dick, like an aged and powerful holy relic, jutted broken off from Loli's core, her dying body contracting greedily around it. Lucy, on her stomach, gasped. "The Log!" She reached for it, but yanked her hand back when a bullet tore off three of her fingers. Blood spurted from the mangled stumps like geysers and sprayed Lacy, who crouched next to her.

The gunman raked fire blindly back and forth as if reveling in the simple act of destruction and not caring who or what he hit. Somehow, the stove was on fire, flames licking from the burner in long, shimmying stalks, and rubble littered the floor, raining down on the backs of the huddled psychos. A bullet grazed Abby's shoulder, and she screamed, certain she'd been shot head on; another hit a skull on the counter and it disintegrated; the dangling mobile above dropped, its string severed by lead, and landed neatly on Abby's plate, the bones giving themselves over to the same fate as the meat that once clung to them. Lyra held her face in her hands and wept bitterly like a lost and frightened little girl and Bed sought shelter under her chair.

As quickly as it started, the shooting ended, and deafening silence crashed down around Abby, broken only by low, injured moaning. The wall behind the stove was beginning to bubble and char as the fire grew, thin black smoke hazing the air. Under the table, Logan cried and Lucy sucked sharp gasps of breath through her teeth; Lori lay motionless on her stomach, blood spreading around her, and Liena was beached on her side, her breathing labored and raspy.

With a jolt, Abby realized this was her chance.

She worried at the rope tying her left hand to the chair arm, shudders wracking her body. Someone was whimpering and muttering incoherent prayers - she was only vaguely aware that it was her.

Lemtard jumped to his feet, the chainsaw in his hands, and yanked the cord; the motor caught with a heart-stopping rumble and Abby's center crumpled like an aluminum can. He held it high over his head with a guttural roar, revving it, high, low, high, low, then turned and kicked through the back door in search of the interloper.

Fire spread up the wall and lapped at the ceiling, tripping an alarm: a piercing _beep-beep-beep_ cut through Abby's brain, urging her on. Lyra covered her face with her shaking hands and hitched, and on the floor, Logan chanted, "My nuts...my nuts…" in a pitiful moan.

Abby dug at the knot but her nails broke and bent, so grabbing the rope with her free hand, she drew it back just far enough to slip out. She ripped the gag out and started to get up, but paused when her gaze locked with Bed's. The little girl stared up at her with tearful eyes, her lips quivering and her shadowy face rippling with child-like terror.

She couldn't leave her.

Reaching out her hand, Abby said, "Come on," her voice quick and panicky.

The little girl didn't move. Behind her, Logan rolled side to side on his back like a fat turtle, his hands clutching his bloody crotch, and Lacy, sitting Indian style, picked one of Lucy's severed fingers up and tossed it into her mouth as though it were a tasty treat.

They didn't have time for this. Abby snatched the little girl's hand and pulled her to her feet; Abby's knees were weak and shaky, and for a moment she wobbled. She bent over Lyra, "Honey -" her words cut off in a yelp when someone wrapped their arms around her from behind and yanked her back. Bed's hand ripped from her grasp, and the little Asian balled her fists defensively to her chest. Abby screeched in animal fury and threw her elbow back, hitting her captor in the stomach and knocking his breath from his lungs. His grip loosened, and she pulled away and stumbled toward the back door, but he was on top of her again, holding the back of her shirt. Cold, hard steel swiped across her back and stinging pain streaked into the center of her skull. Flashing, she drove her leg back and connected with Bobby Jr.'s knee. His foot slipped in a puddle of blood and he went down with a grunt. A hand shot out from under the table and grabbed Abby's ankle; she screamed, danced back, and lashed out, Lucy's nose crunching wetly.

Bobby Jr. struggled to his feet, grabbed her and wheeled her around, his teeth baring like a dog and excited pants blowing from his lips. Abby kicked her legs and shrieked. "Y-You ain't rid the r-r-rocket yet," Bobby said into her ear, his hot breath burning her skin. Unthinking, she threw her arm back, wound it around his neck, and dragged his face to hers; her teeth clamped down on his nose and the coppery taste of blood filled her mouth. He screeched and dropped her. Stumbling, she launched herself blindly into the living room - no longer thinking of Bed or Lyra or Vale or even Flagg, but only of getting away, of one day holding her baby.

"You fuckin' dog d-dick!" Bobby screamed, blood oozing between his fingers. He let go, raised a straight razor, its keen edge refracting the light, and gave chase.

Abby didn't stop as she bolted toward the front door, didn't register the room around her: The lampshades and couch cushions made of mottled human flesh, the wall-mounted picture frames made of bones and boasting photos of generations past, each one a little less inbred the farther back the year. She reached the door, fumbled hectically at the latch, ripped it open, and staggered into the sultry Texas night.

* * *

Outside, Vale scurried away from the kitchen window at a crouch, the rifle clutched in his hands. A fire alarm sounded from inside and so, too, did the blood-freezing revving of a chainsaw.

His mind raced as he hurriedly tried to formulate a plan. He could circle around to the front of the house and go in through the living room. If he met anyone, he'd shoot them. There was no telling how many people the Louds were holding prisoner and it was likely he might come across one, but all that mattered was getting Abby and getting the hell out of here. They could send help back later.

He went back to the cop who dragged Abby into the kitchen. The Louds had some kind of sick, inbred monopoly on the area. How far their influence and kin stretched, he didn't know, but he didn't trust anyone.

Behind him, the back door slammed open and Lemtard ran out with the chainsaw jutting before him like a giant, throbbing phallus. Vale ducked to the left and ran alongside the house, hunching forward as he passed living room windows blazing with low lamplight. He reached the corner, pressed himself flat against the clapboard siding, and peeked around. The porch lamp was on, its feeble rays bathing the weather stained wood. The chainsaw revved louder, closer, and Vale glanced back; he couldn't see Lemtard, but he could hear him, the ominous buzz swelling like the rising grumble of an onrushing tank.

The front door crashed open, making Vale jump. Abby dashed down the steps and tripped on the last one, landing on her hands and knees in the dark. Her shirt was ripped, blood leaked down her back, and she shook as if with cold. Ragged whimpers and trembling moans poured from throat and when she drew herself to her feet, she took off headlong down the driveway at a shambling gait. A moment later, Bobby Jr. tumbled down the stairs, his arm raised and a knife in his hand. He started after Abby, and Vale stepped out from concealment, the rifle snapping up. "Drop it," he said. Abby glanced over her shoulder and came to a lumbering stop, her arms pinwheeling as if to slow her pace. Her eyes, soft and clear before, were wide and her chest rapidly rose and fell, her skin, normally a tanned and healthy shade, was ashen, her forehead slick with sweat and probably clammy to the touch. Bobby Jr. stopped, turned, and hesitated when he saw the gun. The chainsaw was further away, the sound droning in the distance as Lemtard looked for his prey.

Vale aimed at the redneck's chest. "Now."

For a second, Bobby Jr. regarded him bemusedly, then tilted his head to one side, as if listen to a voice that wasn't there. "That ain't got no bullets," he said smugly. "You done used 'em all. I-I know. I'm the one that;s g-gotta load 'em all." He smiled and licked his uneven teeth. "I don't gotta listen to you."

He came forward, and Vale jerked the trigger.

_BLAM! _

The bullet hit Bobby Jr. - named for his uncle and not his daddy - dead center in the chest. It exited his back in a spray of blood and he flew off of his feet, the knife flying off into the night. He landed in the dirt with a rattle and went limp, arms outstretched and head lolling to one side like a blasphemous parody of Christ on the cross. Abby gazed down at her friend's handiwork with savage satisfaction, her lips turning up in a grim smile. She hocked a loogie and spat; it splashed the dead man's face and slid down his cheek.

The chainsaw was louder. Vale looked up and sputtered when he saw Lemtard loping toward them along the side of the house. Running over to Abby, he shoved her back. "Go!"

She didn't immediately respond. "Go," he said, more patiently, trying to penetrate the fog of her shock, "I'll catch up."

Lemtard came around the corner at a trot, the spinning blade shoved out in front of him, and Abby ran, sparing nary a glance back. Vale raised the gun, jammed the butt into the crook of his shoulder, and squinted down the sight. Less than twenty minutes ago, just holding it unnerved him, but now it was like an old friend. Lemtard kept coming, heedless to the danger Vale posed. Vale took a deep breath, waited until he was less than ten feet away, then pulled the trigger.

_Click._

Vale's heart stopped. He pulled the trigger again, and again the gun clicked uselessly.

In a beat, Lemtard was on top of him, bringing the chainsaw up, then down. Vale reflexively held the rifle lengthwise and blocked the blow; the saw's teeth bit into the metal and kicked up sparks, a jolt worming up Vale's arms. Teeth bared, he pushed against the monster in an attempt to throw him off balance, and Lemtard pushed down, Vale's arms bending and the tip of the blade coming to within inches of his face.

The giant lifted the saw, and Vale jumped back and danced to the side. Lemtard circled him, his listless browns alive with a hitherto unseen intelligence. He gunned the motor, and the saw revved imposingly.

WIth nothing else to do, Vale growled.

Lemtard took a jerking step forward, and Vale moved to his right, lashing out with the butt of the rifle and hitting the creature in the ribs. Lemtard let out an autistic roar and spun; for an awful moment, the blade sliced through air on its way to Vale's head, but Vale ducked. The saw passed harmlessly over the top of his skull, and with a scream, Vale jammed the barrel of the gun into Lemtard's stomach as hard as he could, hoping it was enough to impale him. Instead, the ego-spawned mistake stumbled back, then screamed and came forward again. Vale spun around him like a quarterback running the ball and brought the butt of the rifle down on his hump, knocking him forward. Lemtard pivoted on his heels, and they faced each other, both panting for air, both perspiring, skin slick and coated with grit.

Licking his lips, Vale glanced in the direction Abby went; the moon was down and the western sky was beginning to lighten from black to dark blue as dawn approached. He scanned the night for her, then turned and deflected the saw when Lemtard came with startling speed. Together, they danced in the southwestern starlight, their weapons flashing and clinking like the swords of two expert duelists, Vale blocking and Lemtard's blade grinding against the rifle with a sputtering sound. The friction heated the metal and Vale's hands sizzled, but he didn't let go, couldn't let go; if he did, he was dead.

A malicious sneer crossed Lemtard's lips, and letting forth a thunderous bellow, he shoved, and Vale fell back. His feet tangled and the rifle dropped from his hands, lying across his lap and burning his legs. Lemtard loomed over him like a mountain and raised the chainsaw over his head. Vale opened his mouth to scream, and the blade came down on his skull; hot metal teeth tore into his scalp, ripped his flesh, and broke through bone, sinking into his brain and whipping it to paste. Red, apocalyptic agony exploded over him...then darkness.

Vale fell limply to one side, brains pouring from his decimated skull like batter. Lemtard looked down at him, head cocking curiously to one side. People were trouble. People hurt his family. Now people was dead.

A memory came back to him.

The other people.

The _girl _people.

Gripping the saw, Lemtard revved the motor and looked around. A crack of fiery orange colored the western sky and the darkness was rapidly giving away to wan gloom. Trees, like stately sentials, followed the dirt drive leading to the highway, and beyond them, grassy fields rustled in the breeze. Lemtard scanned the new morning, and tensed when he saw the girl people hobbling toward the blacktop waaaay in the distance.

Her was getting away.

Revving the saw, Lemtard gave chase.


	7. Song of the Saw

**Anonymous789: I love it when my readers mistaken me for being smarter than I really am. I chose that song for a more basic reason. I like resonant dissonance, and wanted to juxtapose the literal slaughterhouse scene with something light and poppy. I was going to use **_**Church of the Poisoned Mind **_**by The Culture Club but settled on **_**Raspberry Beret **_**because I did notice that it seemed to sardonically comment on Laika, especially the line you mentioned. **

_Beep-beep-beep._

Lyra's hands rested limp in her lap, shaking and white, blue veins standing prominently from dirty flesh a patchwork of scars and bruises. Her mind was numb and sluggish, her body cold. The tang of smoke caressed her nose and the endless, ear-stabbing beep lanced deep into her inert brain. Beneath it, Logan cried softly to himself, and someone else moaned. Something happened, but she couldn't remember what, didn't _care_. The torture was neverending, stopping for nothing and no one. Nights bled into days and weeks into months, and still the Louds batted her between their paws like cats with a wounded mouse. She didn't know how long she had been here...six months, six years, six decades, more, less? She bunched her brow in thought but the wheels ground slowly, rustily. It was September when she and her family broke down on the highway - her father, her mother, and her younger sister. They were dead now, and while Lyra, who was once called something else, knew that she should feel something, she did not - only the same icy numbness she'd known since the first rape. Those faces, the ones she loved and cherished, were faded now, replaced by the Louds: Logan, Bobby Jr., Lyah, and Lincoln...especially Lincoln.

If she were capable of logical thought, she would trace her breakdown not to the day Logan raped her, but to the night they made her ride the Log. These people, these monsters, took her, redesigned her, and sat her on the lap of a dead man, forced her to take his cold, unyielding penis into her warm, living womb. The countenance staring back at her was gray, dried, and gaping, and it haunted her every night in sleep.

She once entertained hopes of leaving this place, but she never could, for she was dead...and this was hell.

Her eyes went to the back door, standing open, mocking, inviting her to try and run. If she did, they would stop her and the nightmare would continued on and on forever and ever.

Someone tugged the cuff of her jacket, and she looked dazedly up at Bed. The little girl's wet eyes seethed with urgency. She said something, but her voice was so low, so downtrodden, that Lyra couldn't make out words. A faint orange glow danced across Bed's face, and Lyra turned to the stove. Fire raced across the countertop and licked the overhead cabinets. That was strange. Why was it firing in here? She listened, and the crackle of burning wood, like demonic cackling, found her ears. Smoke stung her eyes, and tears seeped down her cheeks, but she did not blink.

At the head of the table, Lincoln slumped heavily to the right, chunks of his head missing and his nose gone.

Shooting. Someone was shooting.

The police?

A fragile flicker of hope blossomed in her chest, and she looked toward the door. The night sky was creeping toward daybreak and the breeze blowing through was cool, blessed, and good. Dawning of a new day, she thought, and for the first time in months, the numbness in her heart thawed.

"Come on!" Bed whined and tugged her cuff again.

She was afraid to hope, afraid to believe she had a chance, only to be yanked cruelly back like a sparrow on a string. She couldn't count the times she ran only to be dragged back, and when she tried to go, things always got worse: They tied her up, handcuffed her, and beat her. Rather, Lori beat her. _You need to be punished, _she'd said as she stood over Lyra with a belt or a switch. Lyra, tied shirtless and prone to her bed, could only bear down on her teeth and take it - ten lashes the first time, twenty the second, forty the third. Her skin was covered in raised pink scar tissue that still hurt when Logan and Bobby Jr. clawed at it during sex. If she made a break for it and Lori caught her, there was no telling what she would do to her.

Seeking Lori out, she found her lying in front of the stove on her stomach, her back riddled with bullet holes. Lyra studied her for a long moment, trying to comprehend what she was looking at. W-Was she dead?

No, she couldn't be.

She was faking. When Lyra tried to leave, she would pop up, eyes blazing, and grab her by her hair then drag her to her room and beat her again.

But what if she wasn't? What if she was really dead? What if she could really go this time?

Lyra frowned thoughtfully.

The fire was bigger, brighter, the heat caressing her face. Its hungry voice was louder than the beeping, louder than the moaning, so louder it drowned out even her thoughts. That, above everything else, pushed her to her feet. Her movements were stiff, cautious, and shuddering. Her knees knocked and gave out, but she caught herself on the edge of the table. Bed stood aside, shivering, and Lyra took her hand. They haltingly made their way to the back door, glass crunching underfoot; Lyra's apprehension mounted as freedom drew nearer until she was a mass of nerves. A cold, predawn breeze washed over her face and she paused to savor it, her hand laying on an unburned section of counter. Her fingers brushed something, and she turned to look at it just as someone grabbed her from behind and spun her around. Her heart blasted and her body went rigid with terror; she knew it...she could never leave.

Lyah bunched the front of her shirt in her hand and dragged her forward until their noses mashed. The blonde's eyes blazed with madness and her teeth strained from her mouth like fangs - all the better to eat you with, my dear.

"Where do you think _you're _goin', girl?" she said.

Every rape, every blow, every Log ride, and every time Bobby Jr. made her piss herself for fun came back to her in a rush. Images flashed through her mind: Her parents, hung from meathooks and carved liked slabs of beef; her little sister chained in a corner, naked, bruised, and gushing blood from her crotch, Logan standing over her and shaking his head disappointedly _(Damn, broke another toy)_; digging her sister's grave while Lyah stood there and laughed _(we're your family now, sugar tits)_; every tear; every scream; every death; spinning around her in a hellish vortex, her rage, grief, horror, and panic rising until it pounded against her like a torrent against a dam.

And the dam was beginning to crack.

"You're stayin' right here."

Here. This house of horrors crouched in its grove like a monster waiting to snatch unwary travelers from the road, its walls decorated with bones and rotting body parts and its floors soaked with decades of blood, sin, madness, and pain embedded in its very foundation. This prison where Death ever dwelt, the stench of it lingering, the sounds of it echoing through its chambers and passageways.

Lyra was shaking and her flesh was hot, more cracks spider veining the cement, water leaking, then gushing.

With an earth shattering sound, it gave way, and Lyra shoved Lyah back as hard as she could; the blonde wasn't expecting resistance, and stumbled back. A scream so loud it tinged her vision gray exploded from Lyra's throat.

"_LET US GO, BITCH!"_

Suddenly, a kitchen knife spackled with cornbread was in her hand. It fell through the air in slow motion, then plunged into Lyah's chest. Lyah wailed, tripped over Lori's legs, and fell onto her butt, the blade ripping from her breast. Bed grabbed Lyra's free hand and tugged insistently, and letting the knife drop, Lyra followed her out into the morning light, thick black smoke billowing behind them.

Lyah lay panting on the floor, one hand pressed to her wound. Blood spurted through her fingers and dizziness came over her like the shadow of death. The smoke was getting denser all the time, stinging her eyes and throat; breathing hard, seeing difficult. Lucy crawled out from beneath the other side of the table and got to her knees. Blood gushed from her broken nose like water from a faucet and her finger stumps bled on, leaving little puddles on the linoleum. Lacy sat Indian style next to Logan, gnawing on one of Lucy's fingers, and Logan gasped for oxygen. He rolled onto his stomach, dragged himself out, and slipped in Lucy's blood, his chin connecting with the floor.

Lucy caught her breath and looked around. The fire was spreading, encircling her, and her heart twinged with fear. She had to get up and run, but she couldn't.

Not without The Log.

The Log was her Holy Grail, the cup from which she drank the rivers of life and wisdom, she couldn't leave it.

She brushed her hair from her eyes and spotted Loli curled up on the floor next to Lincoln's chair, her body twitching spasmodically. The Log jutted from her center, having snapped off when she fell. Natural lubrication and defloration blood coated it and Loli's flexing butt, and Lucy's heartbeat sped up. Wincing at the pain in her nose and hand, Lucy crawled toward her dead niece, coughing as smoke poured into her lungs. She reached the corpse, hacking, and parted its legs with her good hand. Snot ran freely down her upper lip and tears rolled down her cheeks, mingling with sweat and blood. It was hot, so hot, and she had to close her eyes against the smoke.

Closing her fingers around The Log's cold, jagged base, she pulled, but it was lodged too deep, like the mythical sword in the stone. She peeled her lips back from her teeth in a grimace of determination and pulled; she was panting, sucking smoke into her mouth, coughing, but The Log was wiggling, coming loose, sliding out of Loli's still expanding and contracting girlhood. Shadows crept over Lucy's brain, and she gagged and wretched; she was growing weak and weary, and when The Log was out, she toppled to her side, exhausted.

She'd go in a minute, she thought drowsily. She brought The Log to her lips, smiled, and kissed it.

With that, she lost consciousness.

The surface of the table was engulfed now, flames reaching high and dancing in the breeze flowing through the kitchen door like pagan revelers. Lyah kicked and shrieked as flames consumed her, charring and melting the skin from her bones. Lacy sat dispassionately where she was, making no attempt to flee and showing no signs of pain as her face boiled and ran down the front of her shirt. Logan, on his hands and knees, coughed deeply and cringed at the heat bathing his back. Agony radiated out from between his legs, each wounded throb of his heart making his skull swell. The bullet struck him in the ass and blew out one of his testicles, and when he tried to get to his feet, burning torment enveloped his lower half, starting in his butt and wrapping around him like a lasso of anguish. His balls throbbed and hot lead ballooned in his stomach, making him nauseous and faint.

Lyah's wails reached a crescendo, then cut out like throwing a switch. He tossed a frightened glance over his shoulder and sucked a sharp gasp; a wall of fire swept through the kitchen, flames shooting under the table and licking at his feet. Lacy sat serenely in the conflagration, a dark silhouette, and shoved handfuls of her own liquefied flesh into her mouth. A fearful shudder went through him and, ignoring the pain, he got to his feet and swaggered drunkenly to the fridge; his right knee seized, and he fell forward, hitting he icebox with his shoulder. It upset, swayed, then crashed forward, hitting him in the head and knocking him to the floor. Smoke filled his lungs, and clawing at his throat, face turning blue then a deep shade of purple, he followed the others to that great big Log ride in the sky.

* * *

Abby lumbered down the dirt driveway, her side flaring and one leg locked at the knee. Ragged pants burst from her lips and terror nipping at her heels. Thin blue light painted the world, and straight ahead, the first rays of the crimson Texas sun filtered through the treetops beyond the highway. A gray and splintered split rail fence appeared on her right like jagged fins of a prehistoric sea monster poking through the waves, and a tin can tied to the trunk of a tree clinked forlornly against the bark.

She had been running for what felt like hours but couldn't have been more than minutes. It was dark when she started but night was quickly giving over to day, the dividing line between the two blurry and indistinct just like everything else in the southwestern badlands.

Her leg gave out and she pitched forward, heart in throat. She threw out her hands at the last second and broke the fall, dirt puffing up around her and pebbles embedding in the heels of her palms. She sucked a deep, shivering breath and fought to rein herself in; the hounds of hysteria bayed at her from every side, and if she gave into them, she would die, just like Flagg and all the others.

Flopping into the dust and giving up sounded appealing...nice, even...but she couldn't; she had to live. For her baby.

Pushing stiffly to her feet, she hobbled over to the fence and leaned against it, slivers of wood prodding her arms. She hanged her head, regulated her breathing. Sweat lightly coated her dirty face and the back of her neck and blood still trickled from the gash across her back. Pangs of discomfort gripped her feet and her leg smoldered like a bed of embers; she swallowed, throat tacky, and struggled to keep from sinking to her knees. She had to go, get away, run, run, she could stop when her baby was safe.

She didn't think she could go on, though. Her body was wracked with pain and weariness, and vertigo made her head spin. Her rubbery legs quivered and she started to fall again, but held herself up on the railing, splinters stabbing her hands. If she stayed here, she'd collapse and never get back up; she'd lay there until _he _found her and -

Abby burst into tears at the thought of what _he _did to Flagg. She didn't know what happened and never would, and that gutted her. She imagined him afraid and hurt, his life slowly draining away, not knowing how much he meant to her. When was the last time she told him she loved him? She frantically searched for the answer, pawing and sifting as though her life depended on it. Her chest heaved when she realized she couldn't remember; it was likely in passing, a fleeting taken-for-granted farewell. _I'll see you in a couple hours. _Not a meaningful and heartfelt _I'll never see you again._ If she'd known that that was the last time she would ever tell him that, she would have put her hand on her face, gazed into his eyes, and told him how thankful she was for the three wonderful years they had together...and for giving her a child.

Emotion clutched in her center and she nearly doubled out at the gnashing, threshing _pain._

The hitching sputter of the chainsaw swelled behind her, and she jerked with a squeal. Lemtard, tiny in the distance, ran down the center of the lane, the blade jutting out before him like a white haired child molester's dick. Behind him, the house stood dark and foreboding against the warming sky, firelight flickering in its front windows and sooty smoke rushing from a broken side window.

A cry she wasn't conscious of issuing fell from Abby's lips, and she shoved away from the fence, heart thumping, foot dragging, arms at her waist and rotating wildly as though she were rowing. Strangled sobs trembled over her lips and tears leaked from her bulging eyes. Fresh adrenaline pumped through her and she ran faster still, the pain drowned out by the blaring terror in her brain. She reached the asphalt and came to a crashing stop, her head twitching left and right. The road stood empty and still, bordered by pastureland in the east and dry brown trees in the south. The chainsaw gunned, and the back of Abby's neck tingled. There was nothing for miles in either direction. If she followed the road, Lemtard would catch up with her. Straight ahead, pines and dogwoods trimmed the gravel shoulder, boughs waving as if beckoning her to safety.

The wheeze of the motor was closer, and she looked over her shoulder. Lemtard was coming fast, too fast for a monster of his size, his feet pounding the dirt and his scraggly hair fluttering from beneath his bicycle helmet like a swarm of man eating locust.

Whipping back around, she bounded across the blacktop and down a gentle slope on the other side; she flailed her arms as if by doing so she could gol faster. Low branches slapped her in the face and tore at her bare arms but she didn't slow. The terrain canted down to a dry creek bed, a carpet of dead leaves plastering the ground; she slipped and fell to her knees, then pushed back up and kept going. The saw was deafening, growing until it filled the world. She didn't dare look back as she picked her way up the other side. She hit the top, staggered, kept her footing, and crashed through a screen of bushes; thorns raked her arms, sliced her face, ripped her shirt, but she barely felt their sting.

Behind her, Lemtard reached the incline and ran down without slowing, his steps quick and sure. Abby bent forward to reduce wind resistance and dodged a fallen birch lying lengthwise across the forest floor. Scarlet sunlight fell through the trees now like shafts of blood. She wrenched half around, and screamed in alarm. Lemtard was closing in, fifty feet if not closer. She turned and pressed herself faster, harder, whimpering, crying, and screaming in terror and frustration. A spider web broke across her face and gossamer stuck to her parched lips; a pointed branch jabbed her hard in shoulder, puncturing her skin; she kept going, headlong and mindless with terror.

A flock of birds, scared by the commotion, flew from a cluster of trees, and a small animal darted from one bush to another, its long, reddish tail swishing in the leaves. Blood and sweat oozed down Abby's face, into her eyes and mouth, salty and like pennies. She didn't try to wipe it away; that would only slow her down.

The forest started to thin, trees spaced widely apart and the grass reaching her knees and making it hard to run. In the humid hazed yonder, the land graded up to a long, flat peak, a wire fence held aloft by crooked posts separating it from the meadow. A whistle blasted, and a train appeared in the east, moving leisurely along the track. Abby didn't hesitate to run toward it, there was nowhere else to go, no safety, no shelter, just the buzzing blade and sharp metal teeth. Lemtard exploded from a stand of brush behind and slightly to her right, the saw revving hungrily. She cringed and screamed, willing herself to run just a little harder, a little quicker. Her feet flew over the rain starved earth, the sight of salvation giving her a spurt of energy she didn't think possible. Lemtard ran in a zigzag pattern, first to her left, then her right, then her left again. She caught flashes of him in her periphery and that spurred her on even further.

When she reached the fence, she flopped herself over the top, rusted barbed wire gashing her stomach and tearing jagged claw marks in her tanktop. She hit the ground face first, crawled, and got to her feet. The train's cars flashed by above, the clack of their metal wheels on the rails almost louder than the saw. She staggered up the hill and stopped inches from the passing cars, the wind displaced by their passage blowing rudely in her face. She looked back just as Lemtard barreled through the fence, his massive body ripping wires from posts with whip crack reports and knocking beams to the grass. Pitch black smoke rose above the treetops fringing the sky.

Abby started to hobble again; she couldn't go any faster than a zombie-like lurch, and even that set every never ending in her body on fire. She searched frantically for something to grab onto, but nothing presented itself, and she let out a cry of rage. Lemtard charged up the hill, as tireless and indisuadable as Death itself. He panted obscenely like a wild dog moving in on its prey. Fifteen feet away, now ten, so close she imagined she could feel the excited heat of the blade kissing the back of her neck.

At the last possible moment, a car passed with a metal ladder on its exterior wall. Abby shot out her hand and grabbed it with a cry; she was jerked roughly forward and her feet dragged along the ground, one ankle twisting with a sickening snap and the other shoe ripping off. The blade skimmed the back of her shirt and she let out a head cracking wail, more of panic than pain. She held fast to the rung, her arms burning with strain, and drew her feet up. Sickening agony crept up her leg and her spine tingled. She clung to the cold metal rung and hazarded a look back.

Lemtard loped after, swinging the saw desperately back and forth, trying to keep pace and falling behind. His face twisted in a too-intelligent mask of hatred, and giving up the chase, he flung the saw left and right in an impotent display of fury, his titanic bulk dancing and twirling with a macabre grace that was bewitching in its elegance.

It hit her then that she was safe...that her baby would survive...and she began to laugh, a high, warbling sound of madness and victory.

Lemtard continued to waltz with his saw in the amber light, and Abby screamed hitching laughter until long, long after he was gone.


End file.
